Life Skills Courses for Syrian Arab Republic's Refugees

UNICEF's Rob Sixsmith reports on life skills training for Iraqi refugees in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Rob Sixsmith: For young Iraqi refugees in Syria like Ibrahim, it’s difficult not to play the “what if?” game, to how life might have turned out without the troubles in Iraq. In the post-war years, UNICEF and their partners in Syria have been working to translate these “what if?” thoughts into the excitement for the future, joined by Ibrahim and 80 of his fellow graduates of the UNICEF supported Life Skills Training Center in Damascus. Ibrahim Ali: I want to see my face, I was smiling again. I was so excited and people say “You are good man, you’re doing something great.” Rob Sixsmith: Each of these graduates had a litany of reasons for never returning to education. Like all refugee students, they are still strangers in a foreign country. Despite the problems of the past and present, these Life Skills graduates have worked hard to overturn potentially bleat futures, gaining secretarial and electricity diplomas. The Life Skills taught in vocational centers like this, represents just one element of UNICEF’s attempts to support the education of Iraqis in Syria. The focus of this drive has been within the schools themselves. Suroor Al Eisawa: We are in a foreign country and the curriculum is different here. When a teacher used to ask me something, I would get confused. But now I’m a lot more confident. Rob Sixsmith: Despite positive steps by the ministry of education to welcome all refugee students, many still opt not to cross the playgrounds. One of the greatest barriers to entry and reasons for drop outs has a been that a great many refugee need extra education as they have missed large tracks of school. Olivier Beucher: The project is needed. If you look at simply the marks of the children in their classes, before the classes, after the classes, you will see a huge improvement. Rob Sixsmith: A -- some difficult to reach Iraqi refugees back into school has been the creation of European Union and UNICEF partnered remedial classes, something which has very clearly boosted the success of Iraqi refugees in schools. Whether it would be vocational courses targeting older students supported by the Danish Embassy or remedial classes supported by the European Union, the emphasis of UNICEF remains the same, to offer Iraqi students the choice of a continuous education. This is Rob Sixsmith reporting for UNICEF Television. For more information, visit unicef.org.