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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Home-turned-school helps Yemen children return to classroom

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TAEZ: By converting his home into a makeshift school, a teacher in Yemen’s southwestern city of Taez has helped hundreds of children in the war-torn country return to the classroom.


Three years of fighting have left Yemen’s education system in tatters. Around two million children across the country now have no access to schooling, according to the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), and the war that has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine shows no sign of waning.


But for more than 700 boys and girls of primary school age, Adel al-Shurihi’s three-storey home in the government-held neighbourhood of Wadi al-Slami is a welcome chance to keep up their studies.


“There are two options, either these children end up on the streets or they gather inside the building to study because most schools are closed,” Shurihi said.


“Inside, at least, they are protected from stray bullets.” Book bags in tow, the students line up outside the breeze-block building dubbed Al-Nahda school to do their morning exercise and sing the national anthem.


The home-turned-school has been taking in students since 2016, with the government providing used books for the classes.


But with no budget and a crew of volunteer teachers, Shurihi wants the authorities to do more.


“This initiative began as a charity and a good deed, but now the relevant government entities must continue what we started,” he said.


The structure is divided into 13 classrooms — there are no desks or chairs. Al-Nahda’s 712 students sit on the floor for their daily lessons, and share two bathrooms — one for girls and one for boys.


They are taught by 28 volunteer teachers, most of whom worked in government schools shuttered due to violence and budget issues.


Safaa Mohammed, who worked at a school that was forced to closed, said it was her national duty to teach Yemeni children.


“Our children were lost when they were not learning,” she said.


“We had to open this school after so many closed since 2015 because of the conflict,” she said.


Even though the school lacks many essential items and the classes are packed, Mohammed still shows up each day to teach without pay.


“It is a patriotic duty to teach before it is a humanitarian issue,” she said.


Unicef estimates that some 4.5 million children in Yemen risk losing access to state schools, as teachers have not been paid in nearly two years.


— AFP


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