From outside, the building looked like an ordinary warehouse. The windows were small and the grey walls reflected the light of the beaming sun. The gravel on the road leading up the building made a creaky sounds. As soon as the car stopped by the building, the main door swung open. A group of Iraqi children ran out singing and jumping. Soon after, an elderly man stepped out and shouted something in Arabic to the children. They immediately ran back in the house.
‘This is one of our main centre’, Roya started to explain. She was a member of staff at the NGO that was doing some consultancy work for in Amman, Jordan. ‘We have two main ones in Amman. One is this one where were teach about 200 Iraqi refugee children. The other one is located on the other side of Amman. That one is a smaller centre. Over there, we teach about 80 children. Let’s go inside so that I can show you the whole centre.’
We got off the car and walked to the backside entrance. It faced a small yard. On this side of the building, the walls were painted with bright colours.
‘We had a painting day the other day’, Roya said when she noticed me looking at the walls. ‘We try to let the children make the centre their own. You know, when you come as a refugee, you have left everything behind. So at least this way we can try to help them build their lives here and see this centre as something that belongs to them as well.’
I nodded. I was trying to imagine what these children had been through in the war, but I knew that my imagination could only tell me a part of the whole story.
The centre seemed as small inside as it had seemed outside. Even though it was spread on three floors, each room seemed to be used to its maximum benefit. Most of the time, the rooms functioned as classrooms and afterwards as spaces for extra curricular activities. There was also a separate library room, a room for the social services and another room for a nurse.
‘We need to have a health professional here as many of the refugees don’t have a refugee status yet and so don’t have access to health services here in Jordan’, Royal shook her head. ‘Many families that we provide services for have been in this situation for so long. They are forced to move their lives into a different country, yet they have to wait for an official status for a long time. They can try to use the health services here, but they are often turned away on the grounds that they are not paying any tax for Jordan. It is the same for Palestinian refugees before they get their official status.’
We descended to the ground floor after our tour and sat down to drink some Arabic mint tea. A couple of the teachers sat down with us.
‘Soon Ramadan will start’, one of them said and they all smiled. Ramadan was the Holy month for Muslims and a much look forward to time of the year in Islamic countries.
Roya sipped her tea. ‘We also need social services, because many of these refugee families are not familiar with the legal system here and they need help with sorting out their paperwork. Sometimes they also have problems within the family or because they feel isolated here. Like, we have helped alcoholics a couple of times and abusive parents.’
‘What about formal schooling?’ I asked.
‘That is another huge obstacle’ Roya shook her head. ‘If a child has been out of formal school for longer than two years, they can’t enroll at a national school here in Jordan. This is often the case with refugees. They are living in unstable conditions or on the run for quite sometime before coming here that many of their children have been out of school for a long time.’
One of the teachers also shook his head. ‘This is the primary reason for our centre to exist. We started up this centre in order to provide education for those refugees who cannot attend the regular schools here. We give them the chance to catch up on their education and then, in a couple of years’ time, they can enroll in the national system, subsequently enter university or what they wish to do.’
‘Oh, I didn’t know they had these strict regulations regarding formal schooling’, I said, surprised.
‘Yes, unfortunately refugees often suffer much more than we can even imagine’, Roya sighed as she took the final sip of her tea.
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For more information on the education system and regulations, check this website:
http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/750/Jordan-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html
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