World Vision's Child-Friendly Spaces give Syrian refugee children somewhere to play, learn and get psychological help.
World Vision's Child-Friendly Spaces give Syrian refugee children somewhere to play, learn and get psychological help.
We need you to help The Forgotten Millions. The Herald and World Vision are running a major campaign to raise funds and help the millions of children left homeless by war in Syria. With your help we can make a difference to the children and their families in desperate need throughout this region.
The school bus lurches to a halt outside a Bekaa Valley primary school in the east of Lebanon.
Small Syrian faces peer through the steamed-up windows of the bus, and when the doors open, 40 children tumble down the steps and race, laughing, through the school gates.
They run past the main school building and its classrooms of Lebanese children, and make their way to a concrete sports court at the back of the school.
The school day has begun but will last just 90 minutes. The bus is already on its way to another refugee camp and when it returns, it will deliver another 40 children to the school. As one class ends, another will begin.
World Vision calls this a "CFS" or a Child-Friendly Space; it is an entry point to gauge the needs of refugee children and assess their levels of trauma.
"It is not a school as such, it's a safe place where children can come and play and be children again," says Pamela Daoud, co-ordinator of World Vision's CFS scheme in Lebanon.
Pamela Daoud, co-ordinator of World Vision's Child-Friendly Space programme in Lebanon.
There are four CFS centres in the Bekaa Valley each accommodating 160 children a day.
"It can take some time to earn a child's trust but by the third month we are usually identifying if there are deep emotional issues. They tell us about their lives in Syria, their homes, the bombs, what they've lost and what they fear."
Next to the concrete court are two small prefabricated rooms that serve as makeshift classrooms. Inside are tables and chairs, paper and crayons, and children's artwork taped to the walls. There, etched in crayon often by hands as young as 6 or 7, is evidence of the psychological impact of war on children.
"Sometimes they draw tanks or planes dropping bombs. They draw people crying or bleeding. It helps us see what they have seen."
Nine-year-old Shahed's impressions of life before and during the conflict.
Through role-play and art, teachers and social workers at the CFS help children to work through their trauma.
In some cases, when the trauma is entrenched, staff will engage a psychologist.
"I have just referred an 11-year-old girl. She is calm - too calm. She saw her parents die in a bomb blast and she is incredibly traumatised."
There is also a child protection component in every CFS. If a child is absent or unwell, a social worker will follow up with the family. The most pressing issue at the moment for Pamela is child labour.
"I know of children working 19 hours a day in the fields of local farmers harvesting tomatoes, onions and potatoes. It is difficult. There is such poverty here, but we speak with their parents and see what else we can do to help them."
Morning tea is a piece of cheese or a jam sandwich and every term a child will receive two gifts. Today it is a balloon and in a month they will be given a small bag of popcorn.
"It is only small, but they are always so excited to receive a gift that is just for them," says Pamela.
World Vision also provides each child with three hygiene kits a year including soap, a towel, a facecloth, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste.
"It helps prevent illness and the spread of disease in the camps so hygiene is something we really focus on at the CFS. "
In many cases, Child-Friendly Spaces allow children to create a social connection with a similar-aged child. In the chaos of fleeing the conflict, communities and friendships have been severed and many children don't know what became of their cousins or friends.
"Most children tell us they would just like a friend, and so we put a lot of effort into creating a social connection for them."
Giving kids safe place to play
World Vision's Heather MacLeod.
Heather MacLeod is one of New Zealand's leading disaster specialists and helped develop the concept of Child-Friendly Spaces in 1999 while working with Kosovan refugee children in Albania.
"Children need friendships. If a refugee child becomes isolated, their lives can really deteriorate. You need to support them psychologically in the same way you would an adult."
Christchurch-born Ms MacLeod is a trained nurse but joined World Vision in 1991 to work with orphaned children in Romania. She is now a senior figure in World Vision's Disaster Management Programme.
"One of the ways we helped the Kosovan children was to re-establish routines for them. Children suffer a sense of loss when their lives are turned upside down, and if you give them a routine it makes their lives less chaotic.
"In a conflict zones children can look at soldiers as their heroes, so you want to create different heroes for these kids, and you start by offering them a safe place that doesn't centre around conflict."
As the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year, it's important to give children a sense of normality. "What we can't do is solve the world's problems but we can provide children with a routine and a safe place to play, and every child deserves that."
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