Education opportunities for 200 Palestinian Refuge

Background during and after the implementation of the project;

The tragic events of August 2020 in Lebanon, including the Beirut port explosion on August 4th and a new spike in COVID-19 cases, make this resource particularly relevant. These compound crises have weakened the education system even further. The Beirut blast led to at least 4 children killed, an estimated 1,000 children injured, and approximately 100,000 directly impacted. Widespread psychosocial trauma among children is already being reported, and damage and destruction to at least 163 public and private schools around the blast site will constrain education delivery for 85,000 affected learners for a long time to come. An additional 20 technical and vocational schools have also been impacted. The explosion comes in the wake of an unprecedented political and economic crisis: over the past year, the Lebanese pound lost 80% of its value, and starting in October 2019, spontaneous nationwide protests called for an end to the government’s crippling sectarianism and corruption that ultimately led the Prime Minister to resign later that month. 

According to May 2020 estimates, 55% of the population lives in poverty, with an estimated 23% in extreme poverty; diminished economic activity from the port coupled with the economic stresses of COVID-19 are likely to exacerbate the situation. This has left an estimated 300,000 people homeless and rendered an estimated 70,000 jobless, further exacerbating both the risk of COVID-19 transmission as people relocate and the economic challenges the population faces. Economic pressures on children to engage in the workforce, already a challenge before recent events, may intensify as families combat deepening poverty. 

Naba’a Achievements; During the last period, The most highlighted achievements during the last period;

-          Distance learning is one of methods applied by most NGOs, Governmental schools UNRWA and INGOs in working with children and parents from the beginning of March until the end of the scholastic year, while we are now in the phase of evaluating that experience to plan for January 2021.:

-          Investing in the training conducted by the partners ( SCI – UNICEF .. ) ensuring better educational opportunities for children during COVID – 19 pandemics

-          Creating the WU groups (2 groups per teacher, 12 children per group

-          Visualization of the lesson (video, illustration, PP) Sharing lessons with the group.

-          Parents as facilitators; Send parents a notification in order to facilitate the process with their children.

-          Back to the group 2 Hrs later to handle their questions and check their understanding; Awarding children

-          Fostering and reshape the lives of the most marginalized 230 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians young and adolescent girls through empowering the vocational skills of the most marginalized Lebanese girls and enrolling them in the vocational training center to study a vocational profession, this might help in preventing them to get married in the early ages and to think of their future in addition to provide an opportunity for them to find a job in the Lebanese community and to integrate with into it, so that their socio-economic situation will be enhanced as they are able to afford their daily expenses without being a burden on their families.

-          We encourage our team to use new technologies to communicate and follow-up continuously throughout the day, and some professors expressed that they feel tired more than the normal working days before the crisis of Corona.

-          In coordination with the school administrations, we worked to provide them supportive materials for the grades 1 to 9, which was appreciate from the principals for this the initiative, which helped students in their learning.

-          We have reached 1250(686F:564M) students to benefit from this methodology through the videos that had been sent to the direction of school. 

-          For the grade from 1 to 9, Around 80 Nabaa teachers work with a group of children (Between 15 to 20 children) each according to their specialist.

Psychosocial & case management;

-          Throughout the Corona period, work groups have been established through What’s Up, which included a group of women, girls, and adolescents for the purpose of communicating with them and raising their awareness as well. Add to this, the individual cases have been followed up through WhatsApp, as it is worth mentioning that a group was created to follow up the collective cases. On the other hand, we’ve communicated with girls where several awareness sessions have been provided, such as COVID-19, anger management, emotional distress, and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As for the teenagers, we’ve communicated with them as well as we gave them awareness sessions about COVID-19, time management, and emotion management.

Case study

A 15-year-old girl, M.M., has vision problems (partial sight), her classmates were intended to bully her due to this matter, and it also affected her academic achievement, as she was falling back in school due to both health and psychological condition. As she feels that she is different from the rest of her classmates and fear of being bullied by others because she fails to provide a correct answers while participating, it lead her to skip classes, as well as the harsh notes from her teacher, they are factors that made her take a decision and leave  school for 3 years ago. In addition to her family's terrible economic situation that was an obstacle because she wanted to enroll in a school for special needs. Moreover, she never left home since then, and through the home visit we conducted for students who dropped out from school, we were able to monitor the situation and started to work with her on several levels, so that she can be able to socially integrate within the activities (psychosocial support activities / social rehabilitation / social service activities) and psychologically by attending individual psychological sessions to raise her self-confidence and to help her accept the health status she’s going through, work to develop her strengths, strengthen her weaknesses, search for her hobbies and skills, enhance her capabilities to support her academically, provide vocational training course to commensurate with her abilities. Also, she underwent a 6-months vocational course specialized in organizing occasions. This training course had a great positive impact on her life, as she was more integrated into society and created new friends. In addition to her acquiring a profession to commensurate with her abilities and skills through which she can start a special project that enables her to be financially independent, which in turn is reflected to her psychological and social status because of the positive impact, as her mental health will improve after she achieves her ambition and work on her goals, her capabilities and the emergence of her personality within the environment and society as a whole. This will contribute in improving the child's social, psychological and professional status alike.

Recommendations:

-          Weekly psychological follow-up a with the psychologist for stability and personal development on all levels. 

-          Search with the child for sources of material support to help her in developing and achieve more successes.

-          Working with parents and the surrounding environment to gain positivity and help their child rehabilitate psychologically, to overcome the pressures they are constantly exposed to from the society due to their daughter’s condition. 

-          Transfer the child to free training courses on how to manage projects and professional marketing, and others in order to help her develop skills.

Links:

• Naba'a website