Iraqi Refugee Children Out of School

04/28/2009

Iraqi Refugee Children Out of School

The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu, Nigerian-born American political scientist

In her Education Week blog, Mary Ann Zehr reports by some estimates that four out of five of the Iraqi refugee children living in Jordan and Syria are still not attending school. She observes:

"The longer their exile continues, the more officials worry about the next generation. Back on Iraqi Street, 13-year-old Ussam al-Sharraf ladles steaming bowls of kuba — fried lamb dumplings served in a tomato broth — for customers at the al-Baracka. Out of school for four years, Ussam is delighted to spend his days helping his father, the owner of the storefront restaurant. His father, none of whose eight children are in school, sees childhoods lost. 'Of course I worry about their future without education, but I don't know what to do,' says Nabil Hassom, 60. 'I can't afford to send them to school. I need them to help me in the restaurant.'

"American schools are receiving some of these unschooled children, as displacement from the war for many of these refugees drags on. The United States has accepted about 23,000 Iraqi refugees over the last two years. That's out of an estimated 2 million Iraqis who have left their homeland since the war began in March 2003."

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