Hanan is showing us a picture she drew on a torn piece of paper. In some ways it’s what you’d expect from an 8-year-old. The people have smiling faces and amorphous bodies. The houses have pointed rooftops and windows.
But look more closely and there are painful details. Hanan has drawn a small tank in the middle of the picture. And toward the top of the page are strange circular objects that seem to be leaking, one next to a house, the other onto one of the smiling faces. Hanan points to the circle dripping on a house, and says, “This is an eye crying.”
Hanan is a refugee from Syria’s brutal civil war. A bomb killed her father while he was selling vegetables on the street. Her younger brother was wounded by falling rubble when a blast hit their apartment. Hanan’s mother got her five children out of Syria. They now live in a slum area of Amman, the capital of Jordan.
Hanan is quick. She missed a year of school as her mother moved the family from place to place to Syria, hoping to find safety. But Hanan remembers numbers, can do simple math and can write her brother’s name in Arabic on the same paper as the drawing. She’s alert and curious and interested in learning more about the world beyond her family’s bare apartment.
It’s September 2013 and classes are starting; it’s time for Hanan to be in school. One thing in her favor is that her mother Rawda wants her to go. With no source of income and unable to work legally in host countries, many Syrian parents have had to send their kids out on the streets to sell gum and other small items.
Also in Hanan’s favor is the fact that her mother might not decide to have Hanan watch her four younger brothers—including Izeddin, a 7-year-old who has not been able to walk since the bomb blast worsened his existing weakness. If her widowed mother gets a job and Hanan has to become a permanent babysitter, her time at school may be over before it’s begun.
Though school is free, even paying for paper or pens is prohibitive for Syrian refugee families struggling to get by. Nevertheless, Rawda goes to the local public school to register Izeddin and Hanan for classes. But Jordan’s schools are full. Over past decades, Jordan has generously welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees from many countries, including Iraq. Jordan has already created second shifts in some schools since Syria’s civil war forced one million children to leave their country. But classrooms and teachers are finite. Rawda was told there was no place for her children.
CARE has helped Rawda with a cash grant to help her pay for food and rent. CARE’s case workers can refer refugees like Rawda to other organizations who help with school issues. And CARE is planning to create family centers where kids like Hanan and her younger brothers can play safely with other children and read books.
But it’s not certain Hanan will make it to school this semester. She’ll be one of thousands of smart, eager girls worldwide who are blocked from school because of war, poverty, tradition—or because she has to work to support her family.
Hanan keeps describing the picture. “This is one of my brothers. And this is another house.” She points to the second circle, the one dripping on a human figure. “And this is another eye crying. And this is me.”
Read more about how we're assisting Syrian refugees or click here to read our latest story about how health care represents a major problem for many Syrian refugees.