Adjusting to life in a camp in the Niger is difficult, for Malian refugee children – but school provides a place to learn, play and forge friendships.

By Shushan Mebrahtu

UNICEF correspondent Chris Niles reports on a UNICEF-supported programme in the Niger ensuring that Malian refugee children are able to continue their education.

MANGAIZE, Niger, 1 March 2013 – It is the first day of class for Malian refugee children at the primary school in Mangaize camp.

Adjusting to a new life in the camp, which stretches over the Sahara Desert, is not easy, particularly for children who have escaped the violence back home.

But, at this school, they are trying to return to normalcy. They are excited to learn, play and socialize with their friends.

By Monica Awad

AL-KAABNEH, Occupied Palestinian Territory, 9 September 2011 – Every day, 12-year-old Tahreer Ali walks through a mountainous dirt road in the extreme heat to reach her school. “I enjoy learning, even if it’s difficult to reach my school,” she says.

Located in a Bedouin community in the middle of the desert, 50 km north-east of Jerusalem, Al-Kaabneh school is composed of six shipping containers. They provide the school’s 70 students with little protection from the heat or cold, and they lack proper sanitation facilities. The school has only one functioning toilet, offers no library or computer lab and has no schoolyard where children can play.

October 2010

Since the beginning of the month children in Haiti have streamed back to school amidst challenges in securing proper learning spaces, materials and teachers. The Global education cluster, the body designated by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) to lead education recovery in humanitarian response, has estimated that over 2,890,000 children will be back in school for the 2010-2011 school year.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-1206/Roger LeMoyne
A girl smiles during class in a tent at Celie-Lilavois Primary School in Port-au-Princel. Some 4,700 schools were damaged or destroyed by the earthquake, affecting some 700,000 school-age children. The new school year brings both challenges and opportunities for girls in Haiti.

By Anna Azaryeva

NEW YORK, USA, 13 October 2010 – As schools open for the new academic year in Haiti, the hope is to bring all boys and girls to school, those who attended before the earthquake struck in January 2010, and those hardest to reach, who will go to school for the first time.