No school, no future

Eight year old Hasania Suleiman is lives in the Otash camp in South Darfur and has no hope of going to school soon.

Her mother cannot afford to pay the monthly fee — an equivalent of $2 — charged by a makeshift school at the camp.

Many displaced parents cannot afford the fees charged to support the operations of the few temporary schools set up at the dozens of displacement camps that dot the war-weary region.

In the face of dwindling aid for education in Darfur, attending school is fast becoming a dream for displaced children like Hasania.

The displaced people’s daily struggle for adequate food, water, shelter, healthcare and other necessities has pushed the education of their children to the backburner.

The children’s dreams and ambitions are trapped in the ramshackle bamboo-and-sacking structures that they call home.

Six years into the Darfur crisis, life-saving services such as food aid, primary health care, water and sanitation interventions still top the relief aid list, hence funding for education is not seen as a priority.

The situation hasn’t improved much since 2006 when a report by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children noted that Darfur children and youths traumatised by conflict and displacement have missed the opportunity for the structure, stability and sense of normalcy that schooling provides.

“The children’s overall development is severely affected by lack of education opportunities,” says Joyce Kago, World Vision’s child care and gender development expert in Darfur.

Kago says attending school is a form of therapy for Darfur’s war-affected children because “learning and playing at school helps them to forget their suffering.”

The paucity of education opportunities at the displacement camps is denying thousands of children this badly needed therapy, she says.

At Al Salam camp, on the fringes of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, it is estimated that 10,000 displaced children are out of school.

Of the camp’s 12,000 school-age children, only about 2,000 can be accommodated at three poorly equipped schools and one children’s centre set up at the camp.

Kago says the out of school displaced children face a double tragedy because they have no room to play in the cramped camps and no opportunities to change their lives.

The report by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children noted that the youth face even more difficult barriers: secondary schools do not exist in the internally displaced persons’ camps, leaving young people in the camps with nothing to do and little hope for the future.