Field trips, learning and stories – CJC, Lebanon

Facts

Project: Children of Al-Jalil Center (CJC), Baalbek – Libanon
Reported: March – April, 2016

Al-Jalil Center (CJC), provides support for Syrian children who receive daily schooling and weekly activities at the CJC. During January – February 2016, 246 children aged 6-14 years, came to CJC, to participate in our training programs. At the start 73 of the children could neither read or write.

The children come to the center to study Monday – Thursday, their focus is to study:
– Mathematics.
– Arabic.s
– English.
– Computers / Programming.

Also – psychosocial activities (games, drawing, crafts, etc.) are included for all children every Friday and Saturday. We also conducted workshops on children’s rights for the children to understand and know more about their rights.
Children of Al-Jalil Center is supported by Rights Now, enabling the organization to sustain the activities for the children who are refugees from Syria. Among other contributors is: OXFAM.

Below is an excerpt from the full report, and please view pictures below as well.

Weekly activities

The children are provided some structure in their lives by being part of the camp and receive education and psychosocial activities.  All children take part in daily education focusing on different subjects: Arabic, Math, English and Computer. CJC teacher’s divided them into groups. The first group who can read and write come to the centre in the morning, while the second group (73 children) come to the centre afternoon to study.

Storytelling

In April, a CJC trainer facilitated workshops for the children to share their stories and experiences while fleeing from the war in Syria.

During the first day, the children were taught the skills of story telling by writing, drawing, etc. On the second day, all 19 children started to share their stories:

– About their daily life in Syria before the crises.

– Their daily life in Syria during war.

– Their time and often hard suffering in Lebanon as children living in a refugee camp.

This is Mohamad’s story.

He came from Syria to the center. He can read and write arabic with some difficulty, but he isn’t able to read or write in english. He started by saying;

” I’m Mohamad, 13 years old, Syrian who live in the village Daraa. I have 6 brothers and 2 sisters”.

Mohamad told his story at the CJC workshop on story telling, he started to describe his war journey from Daraa to Damascus, the sounds of bombs and rockets.  He remembers when they bring his father to their house. He dies, being shot many times. After that, Mohamad started to cry and didn’t continue to tell more about his experiences…. (But he was comforted by his teacher and well cared for).

Field trips

On March 27, 80 children aged 9-14,  participated in a trip to Baalbeck ruins/castle and a lunch in the Ras El Ain garden where Al Jana was organizing a show with clowns and some outdoor games for all the children.

On April 4, 82 children aged 6-14, participated in a trip to the amusement park in Jeb Jin for a two hour visit and lunch.

The children were very happy, especially the kids aged 6-9.

Conclusions

We, CJC, can say that the project at the center is providing direct results of improvements for the children in terms of reading and writing, and this is making their daily lives and their future easier.

CJC staff, the children and our community – thank Rights Now for the support and look forward to more cooperation and community development.