Orphaned by War

A Syrian orphan in class at Baraem Al-Shouhada Orphanage School

Antakya, Turkey - The mission of the Baraem Al-Shouhada Orphanage School is to provide a safe, nurturing learning environment for Syrian refugee children whose parents have been killed in the Syrian civil war. Nestled in an urban residential community, and situated on a small plot of land wedged between two neighboring houses, this modest, brightly-colored three-story school is fitted with narrow hallways and small, stuffy rooms, crammed with 220 plus students. As the sound of the afternoon call to prayer falls away, the residential street fills with the noises of children at play. Children proceeding between classes form a line by placing their hands on the shoulders of the child in front of them, giggling as they snake their way down the staircases toward their next classroom. The youngest of the children are allotted more free play time with their teachers in the back section of the school, while groups of elementary-aged students are rotated outside for recess and exercise.

Children proceeding to their next class

Each child attending the Baraem Al-Shouhada Orphanage School is exactly what the establishment's name suggests: an orphan. Every child has lived through the terrors of the Syrian civil war, has had their family violently taken from them, and is now left to face their own ordeals. "Every child here has trauma," an Arabic language teacher told me. "We do the best we can to comfort them, but you can see memories of the war on the each of their faces." Some of the children lost their fathers in combat—those who picked up a gun to fight in the revolution against the Assad regime—but most lost their families during the endless bombing campaigns around the country. This is the case for 12-year old Hassan, a Syrian boy who took refuge with his family in an underground shelter. After getting his family to relative safety, Hassan's father ran back into the streets to help others find cover, and to aid those who had been wounded in the bombardment. Then another round of shelling fell, and Hassan's father never returned. When the dust settled, and people ventured out from their hiding places and back into the streets, it was Hassan who recognized his father's body, and who dug him out from the rubble with his own hands. 

A Syrian girl anticipating recess

This is but one of more than 200 stories carried by the school’s orphaned children. All across Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and inside Syria itself, thousands of these stories will continue to go untold. Although these children have survived through the violence physically unharmed, their wounds are deep, and their traumas are clearly visible. Students occasionally break down in tears, crying uncontrollably for their deceased parents, and an entire class of children will instinctively cower under their desks for fear of bombing when the sound of an airplane is heard overhead. "Every child needs our help," the program coordinator for the school explained to me. "We try to provide them with psychologists to talk about their problems, give them games to be happy, or read from the Quran to help them relax. We don't have much money. Like other Syrian schools, we have been working for over two years without being able to pay our 25 teachers. But we cannot leave these children. If we [teachers] cannot afford to buy shoes, then we will teach barefoot, and hope that God will provide for us. We must look to the future, not the past. Too many children have suffered, and we must look to find a way to make their lives better."

A girl in studying during her Arabic language course

Leaving Baraem Al-Shouhada, the school principal thanked me for coming to be with them. Looking back at a class making art with their teacher, at the child in the far corner sobbing uncontrollably for his family, and at the children congregated to say goodbye, I asked the principal if there was anything he wanted me to tell the outside world. Placing one hand on my shoulder, he replied, "The world needs to see how we live. Most people are good, but before they will want to help us, they must understand our lives. Tell them. Put them in our shoes. How would they feel if their father was taken from them, if their mother was killed, if there was no future for their child? What would they think then? What would they want the world to do?"

An Syrian orphan after crying for her parents

The youngest group of students learning with their teacher

A Life-Rope Over the River

Hatay, Turkey - Dawn breaks, stretching its pinkish-orange gaze westward across the sky as the smuggler's van slowly rumbles along a dusty road toward the Helleh River, the natural border separating Syria and Turkey. Pulling off to the right-hand side of the road, the van stops along an earthen trench, 15 feet deep and 10 feet wide, running parallel to the border for as far as the eye can see. In a few areas, mounds of dirt have been compacted to form a thin walkway to cross the division, leading to foot-holes chipped into the far wall to help climb the rising embankment on the other side of the trench. Standing atop the tall embankment, you look down on the Helleh River with its green, slow moving waters laden with sediment. On the other side of the river, Syria.

Syrian refugees eagerly waiting the cross the Helleh border river into Turkey

The day has only just begun, yet already dozens of Syrians gather on the far bank of the river waiting to cross—illegally—into Turkey. Women, children, and men, young and old, have traveled through the night to reach this crossing point. Now they congregate along the river, starring anxiously across the water, eagerly waiting to put the living nightmare that is Syria behind them. A single rope, spanning the breadth of the river, is all there is to help pull each of them across on a makeshift floating device. For hundreds of Syrians every day, this simple length of twine, four inches thick, and 150 feet long is the difference between a safer life in Turkey and a continued life in the midst of war. One by one, families load themselves and the few belongings they can carry onto variously styled rafts, and are tediously drawn across the river to Turkey.

Syrian refugees using a rope to cross the river on make-shift a raft

The window of opportunity to cross the border is slim. Soon the Turkish military will arrive to stop the crossings, and everyone knows it. A tense atmosphere lays in the air, as thick as the dust being kicked up by the newly arriving refugees who are scrambling up the embankment with their children to the smugglers’ trucks waiting across the trench. Everyone's pace quickens, the tension ever rising, the grips of desperation clearly seen and felt. The personal story of each refugee is varied, but all are fleeing from violence and war. Many families traveled for days on end through war-torn areas and cities under constant bombardment. They don't know what life has in store for them, or their children in Turkey, but they cling to the hope that whatever the future holds, it surely must be better than living a life under endless shelling. The uncertainty is total. Many people have no idea of where to go, or where to turn. Yet, as the father of one family expressed to me, "I would rather risk my family's starvation, than continue to live a life under the bombs."

Crossing the trench

The dawn crossing over the Helleh river

Madrasah Al-Nur

Hatay, Turkey - The Syrian Madrasah Al-Nur, or School of Light, functions out of a two story business building near the edge of town. Established two years ago by Syrian teachers from Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs, they were able to pool their money together to lease the empty building, transforming it into a make-shift school. Meeting with Syrian teachers in the faculty lounge, which is actually a hollowed out room owned by an unrelated NGO that uses the back half as a storage space, they express the tribulations they face to keep the school running. Teachers, who asked to remain anonymous for the safety of their relative still living in Syria, are working without pay for two years now. Entering Turkey with what little savings they had, they still hold to a dedicated spirit, determined to not let hundreds of children grow up without an education. Yet, after two years of full-time work without salary, almost every teacher has exhausted their family's savings; many of whom are relying on borrowed money from friends, distant family, or from the generosity of the growing Syrian communities in Hatay.

Students in Math class.

"We are one of the poorest of the Syrian school here in Hatay," a language teacher related to me. " We can't afford to pay teachers, we don't have an adequate school building, and we lack the technology, like computers, to get children ready for a future in the modern world." 

Without a continual source of financial support, the school operates by individual donations alone. This creates a very strenuous situation for the 15 teachers working to educate the 300 children attending Madrasah Al-Nur. Aside from the inability to pay its educators, there is also the financial dilemma facing many of the children's families, who can't afford to send their kids to school. Regardless that the school remains tuition free for its students, "some children have dropped out of our school, or can't make it to class everyday because their families simply can't afford the daily bus fare," another teacher told me. "We [the teachers] try to raise money to pay for the buses, but with so many children needing help, the amount adds up."

Children getting on to a bus at the end of the day.

Compiled with the many operational costs, the school also faces a structural problem: the building itself. As an office building refitted as a school, many of the offices-turned-classrooms are too small for the amount of children in each class. There is a lack of accessible drinking water, and none of the rooms are equipped with air conditioning units to warm the classes during the frigid desert winters, or to provide shelter from the heat during the sweltering summer months.

"We can't give up," he continued with a tone of determination. "We can't stop. If we leave these children they may spend their days begging in the streets instead of getting an education. We can't let that happen. The war in Syria has already destroyed so much. We can't afford to loose an entire generation."

Students are assigned cleaning chores to compensate for a lack of janitorial staff.

And he is right. The Syrian war has killed over 200,000 people, and displaced millions. With every passing day the situation on the ground is turning more dire, and the seeds of revenge are only being sown deeper in minds of those whom have had their lives desolated. An entire generation of Syrian children are at risk of being forgotten; left to a life of exile, trauma, and complete uncertainty. 

*For those interested in contacting, or helping Madrasah Al-Nur, you may contact the school's program coordinator, Ashraf Jamous, at: asjamous71@hotmail.com

A girl in Geography class.