On Greek islands, children of war hungry for school

Chíos /AFP

Standing with a group of children outside a refugee camp on the Greek island of Chios, little Roza can’t wait to get an early start to her day.
“Good school, good school!” she beams, her backpack on and pigtails bobbing. Roza, a Syrian Kurd, is one of a small group of children in Greece’s island camps fortunate enough to get some schooling. Thousands of others count education as just another loss in the long list of deprivations on the harrowing road from home.
Roza is one of some 270 children who are learning English, mathematics, arts and creative skills with “Be Aware and Share” (BAAS), a Swiss NGO which has been active on Chios since May.
Operating out of a converted former restaurant in the island’s port capital, the 20-strong team runs classes for children from the age of six, as well as workshops for teenagers about cooking or going to the supermarket. The school also promotes acceptance of other national backgrounds. And hygiene, including toothbrush use. “We’re not here to replace mainstream school,” says Nicholas Millet, a British volunteer and one of the founders of the BAAS school. “We provide an academic curriculum (but) for us, this is about children feeling like children again.” BAAS project manager Jacob Rohde says the programme provides “a drop of normality” for children who also experience regular outbreaks of violence in the camp.
‘A sense of safety’
But he believes that getting children into mainstream Greek schools is an “absolute necessity.”
“Going to a normal school would provide these children with so much more of a sense of structure, safety and normality,” the 28-year-old German told AFP outside the school.
Inside, a teacher can be heard strumming a guitar for youngsters in class.
At the makeshift Souda camp, 28-year-old Djeneba from Mali is one parent who has agreed to send her child to the Swiss volunteer programme.
“I want what is best for my child, she is the reason I’m here,” says this divorced mother, who fled Mali after her firstborn daughter died from the effects of genital mutilation.
There are more than 60,000 refugees and migrants in Greece. Among them are thousands of children, including around 2,000 who are entirely on their own—many under the age of eight.
More than half of these unaccompanied minors—1,200 in all—are staying on the islands of the eastern Aegean.
According to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, refugee children in Greece have on average missed 20 months of school.
‘A very big mistake’
On the mainland, the Greek education ministry last week began after-hours classes for some 1,500 refugee children in 20 schools around the country.
However, there are currently no classes on offer at schools on several islands housing migrant camps.