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The Lebanese Republic: ‘They Quivered, Weep and Move Away from the Windows’

A Young Educator, Twenty-Four

I had just started educating at a school in the Bekaa valley when hostilities erupted in late 2024. In a matter of days, an military attack destroyed my family home. At one moment we were eating lunch, the next the structure were crumbling around us and over my car outside. It took me three years saving for that Honda Civic, so when I saw it ruined, I was overwhelmed in tears.

My family, similar to other families, were forced to relocate to a smaller apartment. The academy quickly transitioned classes to virtual sessions to make sure the relocated could participate. I was educating the French language to pre-teens with about 35 students in each session. Their expressions would appear intermittently on the screen, lagging when the connection was poor.

Participation was mandatory, but many of the children found it hard to focus. After one especially intense airstrike, a mother turned on her child’s microphone and started shouting at me: “What is the point? They’re unable to be in a frame of mind to learn. They need to rest.” It was impossible I could say to comfort her.

As soon as the halt in hostilities was announced, people returned to what was remaining of their homes. My family patched our structure with temporary materials, trying to prevent the chill, while I started commuting to classes again. In-person classes restarted, but the mood had shifted completely.

Despite the truce, strikes continued to occasionally target the area, forcing the children to live in a permanent situation of apprehension. Sudden noises – like a abrupt noise or an object falling the floor – distressed the children. They would shake, cry and step back from the glass, afraid a explosive might drop and damage the glass. When drones flew overhead, they declined to sit near the openings at all.

Illustrating dwellings that had been destroyed supported them see that something gone can also be repaired

I recall one day, after a motorcycle backfired, a boy started sobbing. He shouted at me, “I don’t want to die in this place. I need to die next to my loved ones.” Another child started crying when the word “parent” came up in discussion – he had lost his guardian during an airstrike.

In those moments, I paused the subject aside to focus on their emotional state. We had no resources for formal training, so I adapted my teacher training and my own study about psychology.

One exercise involved the students creating images of the homes that had been affected. I then asked them to depict them restored, surrounded with flowers, vibrance and family. It encouraged them see that something gone can also be healed.

At times I used simple “conversation starter” questions to help them open up. If they were unable to speak freely, I created stories and asked my students to complete them, so they could communicate their emotions through another persona. For the most severe cases, we collaborated with a counselor.

When the school year finished in mid-year, many of the children were still deeply impacted. They kept telling me they could not see a life away from the conflict, which made them question whether schooling was valuable anything at all. Our upcoming term starts in a short time, so I have just been hoping that they were able to unwind and heal during the summer break.

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A West African Nation: ‘I Greet Students Who Sometimes Journey for Considerable Time … on an Empty Stomach’

A Teacher, Twenties

Every day I go through the faded blue gates of the academy, where the book room, computer room and laboratory remain shut for insufficient equipment. Since international funding stopped a while back, my staff and I combine money to buy basic supplies. In the dusty courtyard, where learners gather at morning every morning, the banner flies at the top of a metal mast.

Since a coup in mid-2023, this flag is all that remains of public support in our school, where we host nearly a one hundred pupils per session. Some sit multiple to a table, while the many sit on the ground.

At the secondary school, pupils come from across the surrounding communities. Last year, at the start of the school year, we welcomed more than four hundred children relocated from Nigeria, fleeing conflict. Many have stayed quiet since arriving, deeply disturbed after seeing loved ones kidnapped and guardians killed in repeated attacks. Others, especially boys, were drawn in by armed groups, which grows on illiteracy.

Last year, according to reports, nearly 800 schools remained closed in Niger. Some affected institutions are in regions close to Nigeria, but there are others in local provinces, bordering Mali, where displaced people are fleeing the advance of militants in the east of the country.

Daily, we try to turn our educational environments into secure zones. We built temporary structures we call “coverings” in the school courtyard to teach the incoming students.

Girls’ absence levels are alarming, worsened by aggression, rape and widespread child marriage.

I hope to convey they are safe at school, that they can learn here without anxiety – especially the young women. They are the hope of our nation

Last year one of my learners, Barkatou, young, stopped attending school to get married. I went to see her family. With a ill father and a mother feeding her five children by selling street food, Barkatou represents the main economic resource for her parents.

I explained to them the role of learning and the necessity of their daughter’s education for the economic future of the family.

Additional students like her do not even have a shelter over them. Many survive by begging with makeshift items before returning to empty buildings.

Despite this, every morning I meet children who sometimes walk for long periods, often on an hungry, to reach education. Their courage and strength give me the will to keep educating.

It was also what gave me the confidence to convince the student’s parents and her spouse so that this year, after a year out of school, she rejoined to class. I saw her joy when she came back, {proud|ple