By Sharon Behn Nogueira, United Nations Children's Fund Iraq’s Chief of Communications. Nogueira recently visited Fallujah, Iraq, wherever United Nations Children's Fund is rehabilitating colleges, as well as the 5 featured during this story.
FALLUJAH, Iraq — The walls of Fallujah area unit scarred with bullet holes. Six months agone, 85,000 individuals fled the town as bombs fell on their homes within the fight to retake the town from the alleged Moslem State, regionally referred to as Da’esh. several others had loose earlier.
Today, young students area unit kicking through the scrap of that battle to urge to highschool. many homes and colleges area unit broken. In one college, hit by many mortars, crushed blue chalk and glass carpet the entry.
But individuals area unit returning back; tiny outlets area unit gap, cement chunks area unit being cleared away, mortar holes crammed, and within the colleges, contemporary chalk has arrived.
It’s winter in Fallujah and there's no heat within the school rooms. In one college, the kids area unit sporting hats, gloves and coats as they sit at their picket desks and follow the teachings on the chalkboard.
It’s a modest begin, except for kids like Hamed, 13, World Health Organization lost his father and his own leg during a mortar attack in August 2015, it’s the start of a come back to normality when years of conflict. As he talks regarding his would like to be AN teacher, AN explosion bangs near — groups of de-miners area unit still clearing the town of the bombs left behind.
During a visit to 5 colleges within the town, there have been four controlled detonations, a reminder of the conflict that these women and boys and their families ran off from.
But currently they're arriving from cities around Iraq and also the Kurdistan region wherever they took refuge.
“Half of my friends and half my neighbors have return,” aforesaid Mohamed, 8, World Health Organization wears a brown coat with the hood over his head.
The classrooms area unit filled with kids, although they're still looking ahead to textbooks, and there's nothing on the walls, no coloured pencils and few notebooks. Nearby, another college has been remodeled with simply $4,000, permitting five hundred kids to come back to category.
The teacher, Sahera Abass, says new families area unit incoming each week. She left the town in Gregorian calendar month 2014 once the alleged Moslem State sweptback in, and came back a month agone.
“I came back as a result of this is often my college, this is often my job, this is often my home. I needed to return,” she says.
“Students area unit nervous regarding their future,” Abass says. “They area unit petrified of bombs, afraid they could ought to leave once more, that the war can come back.”
college offers them a respite, she adds. “The families have very little, all the homes area unit broken, they need no electricity, no water.”
One of the city’s larger secondary colleges had been hit with an outsized bomb, flattening a part of it. Luckily, it absolutely was empty at the time.
Today, it's jam-packed with adolescent women in uniforms, as well as Noor. She fled Fallujah along with her family and lived in 3 totally different cities within the past 2 years before returning home.
“I wish to complete my education as a result of it’s my dream to be a doctor or a dental practitioner and add national capital,” she says. “Without colleges, there aren't any dreams for the long run.”
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