The Lasting Effects of War

“All I want is to be with my best friend,” says Sedra, 7, a Syrian refugee girl in Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan.

“I want to go home.”

“I miss my life, my teachers, my school,” says Hasan, 13, another child living in Za’atari, now the second-largest camp in the world.

Some refuse to speak at all.

“My granddaughter does not talk. She is afraid,” says Sara Hassan Kako, an Iraqi woman who has 29 grandchildren.

She and her family fled their ancestral homeland in Sinjar, enduring a 100-mile journey on foot to Dohuk in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She says the backbreaking trek is nothing compared to her “heartbreak when I see these children who were so alive and are now sad and quiet. They went to school. They were learning. Now, nothing.”

Her grandchildren, she fears, will bear the scars of war for the rest of their lives.

“Many children caught in the crossfire of these conflicts lose their childhood literally overnight. They’re forced to take on new roles and adult responsibilities and pressures. There’s limited opportunities to play with friends, to continue their schooling,” says Lucy Strickland, World Vision’s specialist in education in emergencies, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

She says that without education and safe spaces in which children can be with their peers again and continue learning, they face increased protection risks. Girls can fall prey to early marriage and pregnancy, increased exposure to sexual and gender-based violence, and, of course, dropping out of the education system altogether with a high likelihood of never returning.

On the day of Isra’a’s final exam, warring factions destroyed her school in Damascus, shattering her way of life and dreams of earning a high school diploma. “I was in school when the bombs hit,” the 18-year-old said during an interview in 2013. “The windows were blown out, glass everywhere, and some hit my friends in the face and hands.”

A year later, the former honor student still spends her time locked up inside a tiny flat with at least seven others on the most impoverished street in Zarqa, Jordan.

The decline in education for Syrian children has been the sharpest and most rapid in the history of the region, according to UNICEF. For children inside Syria, the reasons for halting education are many: schools destroyed or occupied by warring groups or displaced families, teachers absent or deceased, and insecurity. For refugee families who don’t live in camps, paying rent and other expenses can make it impossible for parents to afford transportation, books, and tuition for their children.

Child-Friendly Spaces

In Lebanon, Jordan, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, World Vision runs education programs in Child-Friendly Spaces to help displaced children learn to read, write, and do math. Child-Friendly Spaces are one of World Vision’s emergency interventions providing children with protected environments to play, socialize, learn, and express themselves during the recovery process. They provide psychosocial programs, an outlet to help children to process the images of war, violence, and loss.

“It’s often really hard to explain to people what education and protection activities look like in an emergency context—people often assume it means building a structure and giving out pencils and books, whereas it’s so much more than this,” says Lucy.

“It’s about providing safe, protective spaces in which children can become children again, and over time, resume some sense of normal.”

How You Can Help

• Sponsor a child: Sponsorship makes a long-term investment in the life of a child, his/her family and community, providing greater access to life-giving basics like nutritious food, clean water, medical care, and education -- the foundation for a future of independence and hope.
• Share our VISION: Be a part of our ongoing campaigns to raise awareness for children caught up in conflict and/or poverty by sharing this message with the world. Use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest to spread the word. Raise your voice and let others know how important it is to invest in the lives of children.

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