Reuters, London :
At the unofficial schools run by Syrian activist group Kesh Malek in opposition-held districts of Aleppo, the children don’t go outside to play during breaks in case a barrel bomb should drop from the sky.
With 110 teachers, most of them new to the profession, the organisation runs seven schools serving around 3,000 children in the divided and war-ravaged city.
Syria’s largest city before the civil war, Aleppo is the scene of heavy bombardment as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, tries to encircle it and wrest control of the rebel-held areas that are home to around 350,000 people. Marcell Shehwaro, executive director of Kesh Malek, said the group’s schools had closed for a holiday and had not re-opened due to the intensified bombardment in recent days. She said she did not know when they would re-open, but had not lost hope.
“When working on education you feel how important it is that there is another generation,
and this generation needs to have a chance, the chance to have education,” she told Reuters in an interview in London.
“We are thinking short-term. Let us deal with the situation as it is now. If Aleppo is besieged tomorrow, we are going to find a creative way to face that. It’s all about resistance.”
Kesh Malek has tried to locate its schools in basements surrounded by high buildings – that present clear targets – to provide some protection against aerial bombardments.
“Sometimes you feel ashamed of yourself, you are choosing places where others are going to be bombed and you are surrounded by protection, their houses are protection,” said Shehwaro.
At the unofficial schools run by Syrian activist group Kesh Malek in opposition-held districts of Aleppo, the children don’t go outside to play during breaks in case a barrel bomb should drop from the sky.
With 110 teachers, most of them new to the profession, the organisation runs seven schools serving around 3,000 children in the divided and war-ravaged city.
Syria’s largest city before the civil war, Aleppo is the scene of heavy bombardment as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air strikes, tries to encircle it and wrest control of the rebel-held areas that are home to around 350,000 people. Marcell Shehwaro, executive director of Kesh Malek, said the group’s schools had closed for a holiday and had not re-opened due to the intensified bombardment in recent days. She said she did not know when they would re-open, but had not lost hope.
“When working on education you feel how important it is that there is another generation,
and this generation needs to have a chance, the chance to have education,” she told Reuters in an interview in London.
“We are thinking short-term. Let us deal with the situation as it is now. If Aleppo is besieged tomorrow, we are going to find a creative way to face that. It’s all about resistance.”
Kesh Malek has tried to locate its schools in basements surrounded by high buildings – that present clear targets – to provide some protection against aerial bombardments.
“Sometimes you feel ashamed of yourself, you are choosing places where others are going to be bombed and you are surrounded by protection, their houses are protection,” said Shehwaro.
