Ten years of work with Syrian refugees in Lebanon

From 2014 - 2024 Children on the Edge supported education for Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

Initially based on four tent schools, before moving to one central building, we helped to provide safe, fun classrooms for hundreds of refugee children. 

Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees, with a third of these located in small makeshift or unofficial camps in Bekaa Valley, where when we began working here, children struggled to access education and support.

In 2014 we began working with Lebanese NGO, Triumphant Mercy, headed by Nuna Matar, to provide education for Syrian refugee children through four tent schools and a Community Centre school in Beirut. 

We supported education for hundreds of children aged 6 -12. Each tented school had a bespoke curriculum, taught by refugee teachers, offering students a chance to learn vocational skills, all in an environment of warmth and safety, where children could blossom.

The tent schools were a huge success, with children achieving not just academic success but a growth in confidence and wellbeing. Children enjoyed lessons and flourished in the supportive environment created by our trained refugee teachers, who helped children to feel more positive about the future.

“The teachers here speak the same dialect of Arabic as their students (often they're from the same or the neighbouring camp as the children), they get their culture, so nothing gets by them. The teachers are motivated to learn, motivated to be useful, and motivated to be a changing force in their communities.”

Nadine, Schools Coordinator

In 2019, the children moved to a brand new central school building in Zahle and began to travel from the camps on specially commissioned school buses, along with their teachers. The school has three floors, plenty of playing space outside and even a ‘hydroponics and aquaponics’ station on the roof, growing salad and vegetables.

As with the tent schools, the children here benefitted from a bespoke curriculum, taught in their own dialect, with refugee teachers from their own communities. They also had lots of opportunity to learn vocational skills, like dance, carpentry, computer skills and sewing and plenty of space to play outside. 

Over the years our partners worked hard to tackle gender barriers, prevent child marriage and challenge stereotypes within the refugee communities we support, to ensure that girls have the opportunity to learn and thrive. In 2023, interviews with the students showed that the gender divides within attitudes to careers and activities reduced, with more girls than boys expecting to become doctors, and the two children hoping to become teachers being boys.

Children were excited to try vocational classes that stereotyping might have excluded them from, with boys enjoying sewing lessons and girls thriving in carpentry.

"Carpentry is often perceived as a man's job in their minds, so witnessing them [the girls] embrace the challenge and enjoy the work was amazing."

Programme Manager Bethany Lanier

Meanwhile, 15 year-old Faraj enthused, “I love the idea of learning to sew and that it isn’t just for girls”.

Over the years, children and teachers often told us how the school felt like a family to them. Unstable home situations, loss and difficult living conditions meant that they really valued the stability, routine, cleanliness and caring atmosphere of the school, which made them feel safe.

One parent commented on her daughter that: "She changed - she loved solitude and now she has friends."

Hussein, 15, said that the school had helped him process difficult feelings; "I learned to control anger in my daily life, and my life became easier as a result."

“Parents tell me the difference I've made in their kids' lives and tell me their children love school and are relaxed and comfortable here. We’ve worked really hard to change the culture and encourage the children to help each other more, be kind and loving. They learn to be a family in class”.

Teacher - Mayassa

We frequently had 100% of children interviewed saying they liked going to school, and their favourite things about it were invariably their friends and their kind, caring teachers, as well as learning and sports.

Since 2020, each year, a class of Grade 9 students have been supported to cross the border back into Syria to take their high school exams. Passing these exams gave them the opportunity to access the next steps in mainstream education, should a return to Syria become possible. These classes achieved incredible success year after year, with pass rates often at 100%. One student from the 2020 cohort returned to the school in 2023 as a maths teacher.

TEN YEARS OF SUPPORT

After working alongside Triumphant Mercy for ten years, it has been a pleasure to see them grow and develop into an organisation that can now fundraise for themselves and operate without our support. We are not actively fundraising for the education programme in Lebanon any more, but will be keeping in touch with Nuna and the team at Triumphant Mercy, ready to respond in potential times of crisis.

We’d like to thank our community for their generous support for Syrian refugees in Lebanon over the past decade. What has been achieved is incredible and we wish Triumphant Mercy all the best as they continue to support marginalised communities in Lebanon. 

Children on the Edge are committed to supporting situations where the need is greatest, working with the most marginalised communities. In every programme we work on, we maintain the principle of investing in the local communities until a time where they are able to own and implement the projects for themselves.