Harrowing images from Syria have become part of the daily news cycle, but for the five million who have managed to flee the conflict, adjusting to life in a new country can be incredibly tough. As most families focus on survival, there is one important aspect of life that has been sidelined – education.
Now, one charity is starting to address the loss of educational resources available to Syrian refugee children. The Karam Foundation, a US-based charity, recently opened a community centre for refugee children in Reyhanli. The Karam House, as it is known, opened in March to provide the children with classes and courses to acquire vital skills to compensate for the loss in their education.
“We have over 120 kids attending so far and the waiting list is growing,” said Nada Hashem, director of operations at the Karam Foundation.
The students participate in a six-week introductory course called Karam House 101, which is required as a pre-requisite for membership. The space is equipped with various tools for young people to explore creatively, including laptops, 3D printers, a, culinary lab, and power tools.
“We have six in-house mentors, talented young professionals in the community, who are guiding and supporting the youth as they explore their interests,” said Nada.
Courses like English and Turkish language acquisition are available, as well as culinary arts workshops and a computing lab where the children can take coding classes. International mentors are brought in to teach and run workshops like journalism.
“The main idea of this space is to motivate creative learning,” said Nada. “It gives the kids tools to let them explore and fail and succeed and build themselves.”
Karam House is focusing primarily on 14-18 year olds to provide them with the skills they can use to build their futures.
Karam, which means generosity in Arabic, was founded in Chicago in 2007, before the war in Syria broke out.
“It was a very small charity bringing the Arab-American community together,” said Lina Sergie Attar, co-founder and chief executive at Karam Foundation. “When the crisis began in Syria and when it became a humanitarian crisis, we refocused the entire organisation and dedicated it to Syrians.”
The Karam Foundation had to adapt quickly to working in a conflict zone and providing aid to the most needy. When Lina went to the internally displaced people (IDP) camps in 2012 and saw the unfolding situation first-hand, she convinced the charity’s board to focus on long term solutions and in particular, education.
“People expected the war to end and things would return back to normal pretty quickly,” said Lina. “But there are so many kids who don’t have access to education and this is a long term problem.”
Karam started its first education mission in an IDP camp inside Syria, near the Turkish border, which was home to 25,000 IDPs.
“We created a summer camp style programme and did arts and sports and built a soccer field,” said Lina.
The team also brought in a dentist to check the children’s dental hygiene.
“We created a really strong connection with the community on the ground. We didn’t want to come one week, do a mission then leave and never see the kids again,” said Lina.
In 2014, Karam created a programme tailored to teenagers called the Karam Leadership Programme, which included coding, journalism and general wellness.
“They [teenagers] were at such a critical point. We wanted to help them get into university and help them get the skills to get dignified jobs,” said Lina.
The team has completed eight education missions since 2013 and has reached out to 8,000 refugee children as well as helping to rebuild and sponsor 30 schools in Syria. These efforts helped to lay the foundations for the Karam House.
“We wanted to create a place where they have access year round to our tools,” said Lina. “Karam House is an innovation community centre where kids can access computer labs, mentors and learn all sorts of skills like preparing for university, language skills and hopefully get virtual jobs through our contacts.”
Many of the refugee and IDP children have missed out on their education. Schools have shut down and for those that have fled to neighbouring countries like Turkey, entering the local education system can be difficult with the children struggling to study in Turkish.
“One major need is for remedial education systems that are flexible for kids who have missed parts of school,” said Lina. “The solution isn’t opening a traditional school for those who have gaps in their education.”
There are close to 5 million Syrian children whose education has been impacted by the war. Apart from missed years of education, psychological trauma is another major impediment to their learning.
One solution, according to Lina, is to teach children how to make use of technology to overcome the gaps in their education, whether that is enrolling in an online maths or science programme.
“We live in a different age where every refugee has a smartphone,” she said. “There are a lot of people trying to build different kinds of apps for education or to go to university online.”
The problem with many of these tools however, is that they are being developed without the input of the refugee and communities themselves according to Linda.
The Karam Foundation worked closely with the refugee children to gauge what a space like Karam House could offer them.
With their input and the charity’s global network, Karam designed programmes that are tailored specifically to the needs of the children at the refugee camp. Therapy is also provided, both in group and individual cases where needed.
One of the most popular courses currently available is coding, which is run by mentor Abdulrahman Y. Idlibi. “We start with learning to code using a programing language called Scratch which allows them to create their own stories and animations,” he said. “We move to programing so they can connect LEDs and sensors and build prototypes and test them out.”
The children differ in their abilities, but they collaborate frequently to learn new skills. “It is not about learning a specific tool, it is more about learning to express themselves and their ideas,” said Abulrahman.
Karam also has a programme that enables people to sponsor a Syrian refugee family for $50 a month. Donors can choose the child they wish to support to help their families and ensure the children go to school.
“We have over 200 kids that we have taken out of child labour or those who were taking care of their injured parents and are now going to school full time,” said Lina. “It changes children’s lives so fast, almost immediately when they go back to school and it gives the family so much dignity.”
Karam visits the sponsored child every month and provides their donors with updates. “I visited one of the schools we worked with, one of the first kids we sponsored was a boy named Suleiman who was 13 at the time and had missed four years’ schooling. He attended a remedial programme for 18 months and in December he joined the 9th grade,” said Lina.
The charity plans to open another Karam House in Istanbul later this year in a bid to reach out to as many refugee children as possible. By providing educational resources that meet the needs of the young people they are helping, Karam is truly building hope for these troubled children’s futures.