Meals for Syrian Refugee Children, Lebanon (MSRCL) had a bit of good luck this week and was able to enroll these three Syrian refugee children shown below in school. We met a teacher is a private school that agreed to teach them until the end of the school year, which is in mid-June. Next year we will see if they can stay be enrolled again. They have not been to school for more than three years so they have some serious catching up to do. Their teacher will decide which class is best for them but I am hoping they can be in the same class.
MSRCL reminded the boys, Issa, Ibrahim and Omar, shown below, that it's very important for them to sit the front row of their classes and give the teacher their undivided attention and avoid the rowdy kids who tend to congregate in the back rows.
We told these boys not to be afraid to ask their teacher when there is something they do not understand and to always be polite. After class which ends at 2:30 they can attend a makeup up class three times a week for Syrian students at Shatilla Palestinian camp where college student volunteers will work with them to catch up as well. The problem is that the boys, Issa, Ibrahim and Omar, will lose the small amount of money they earn from selling flowers and which is needed to buy their families food. So MSRCL hopes their parent (s) will allow them to return to school.
On any given day in Lebanon there are literally hundreds of Syrian Refugee Children who are not in school but pass their days wandering the streets, alleys and roads selling chewing gum, pencils, packs of tissues, small bottles of water or flowers for "chump change" as its known in WDC..in order to help their families buy food.
Lebanon's social services are virtually non-existent for Lebanese and don't exist at all for Syrian refugee children so they are pretty much left on their own".some of their families may receive an UNHCR card for maybe $ 30 monthly. As last week's UN report documents, their plight ever worsens including an increase in Syrian refugee children's abuse and exploitation.
Among flower sellers along Ramlet el Baida beach in Beirut are these lovely lads from Hasaka, Raqqa and Aleppo I crossed paths with recently.
Kids always want a ride on my bike or"increasingly it seems, they want to show me that they know how to drive it by themselves!
Meals for Syrian Refugee Children: Lebanon (MSCRL) was founded in March 2016 by a non-denominational international handful of private individuals in an attempt to respond rapidly and effectively to the urgency to protect from financial and sexual exploitation, as well as feed the hundreds of homeless and parentless Syrian refugee Children, whom the tide of War in Syria since 2011 had washed up on the beaches of Beirut and pushed into the Beka'a Valley.
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