Children’s Club: Children find a new environment for innovation and creativity

By: Vivian Tou’meh   |  08 August 2016

All children and youth live with some risk of experiencing violence; due to their young age, inexperience and dependence which all makes them vulnerable. They are at particular risk of violence during conflict and emergencies as the current situation in Syria is volatile.

“I want to support all the children in my school and enable them to ask for their rights”, said Nisreen while her eyes were wide open with surprise when she realized was elected by her classmate to represent all eighth-grade students in her school along with the other Children’s Club members. © UNHCR/Vivian Tou’meh

The purpose of the Children’s Club is to relay the challenges and obstacles that children face in their community or inside the school to UNHCR’s team as well as submit ideas that can improve their surrounding environment. Nisreen will be the voice of her colleagues. The UNHCR team in return will try to help by implementing these ideas and make them realities.

Fifteen students were elected from Aref School for the Children’s Club in Al-Midan neighborhood in Damascus. The students suggested many ideas that can make a difference in their school such as decorating the school’s walls with paintings, planting the surrounding area and cleaning the school as a start, and selecting training topics to help them in self-development.

This Children’s Club is one of three clubs to be established in three chosen schools namely; Al-Midan, Sehnaya and Al-Kisweh schools in Rural Damascus. The idea is the first of its kind, targeting displaced children inside schools who are already enrolled in the remedial classes supported by UNHCR in collaboration with our partner Premier Urgence. This step will empower and enable them and help in preparing them for the future to become active and responsible participants in their societies.

A training session on Child Protection concepts was organized this week following the last week elections of the Children’s Club members at Aref School in al-Midan neighborhood. The training has enabled these children to look at how they can incorporate measures for the prevention of violence against children and the accurate response as well as the Convention of the rights of the children.

Topics discussed during the training tackled many issues such as who is a child and why do need protection? What is the Children’s Club? Tasks and responsibilities of the Children’s Club, the main goal and next steps forward.

During the workshop, children were asked to name the different types of violence against children they witness in their community and which children are most at risk.

The training, facilitated by Child Protection’s staff from both UNHCR and Premier Urgence. UNHCR together with its partner PU aim to establish a Children’s Club inside ten schools in 2016.

In light of the fact that thousands of schools have been destroyed or are used for different purposes, with more than two million children being out of school and given the lack of qualified teachers, UNHCR continues engaging in the rehabilitation of schools, catch-up and remedial classes and teacher training on psycho-social support and child protection as part of the initiative “No Lost Generation” led by UNICEF, and in recognition of the fact that access to education is a key tool to the protection of children.