Lebanon: Early Childhood Education 2006-07

The education of a child is vitally important to the Palestinian community. This is no less so for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, where children must be literate in both Arabic and English and basic mathematics by the time they are six years old in order to attend the United Nations schools in the refugee camps. The Lebanese authorities or United Nations do not provide early education facilities – all such early education programs for Palestinian refugees are run by non-government community organisations.

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA's long-term partner, the Women's Humanitarian Organisation, has run a successful early childhood centre in Burj el-Barajneh refugee camp, located in south Beirut, for many years. Originating as a nursery in 1993, the Centre now accepts children 0-6 years old and provides a structured early education program which prepares children for their entry to primary school, it provides a much-needed childcare service allowing mothers to maintain their low-paying jobs and support their families, and importantly it provides children with the best start for their education as well as space for children to play within the very limited confines of the refugee camp.

The Centre operates six days per week, has places for more than 120 children each year, and employs 14 Palestinian women, themselves camp residents, as teachers, administrators and support staff.

PROJECT FUNDING
Total project funding for 2006-07 is A$47,500. The project is supported by two Australian unions - the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) and the Liquor, Hospitality & Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU) - as well as with funding from the Australian government (AusAID).

BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
The Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon face the harshest constraints of all the long-term Palestinian refugee populations outside the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinians living in the several refugee camps in Beirut, Sidon and surrounding areas have no access to the education system or the health system of Lebanon. There are constraints on their access to water, electricity, sanitation, telephones and building supplies. Denied citizenship in Lebanon, and in general not permitted to work legally or to buy property outside the camps, they have few civic and social rights, such as access to legal rights, the right to work or freedom of movement, and they have very little hope other than to return to their homeland.

More than 20,000 Palestinians live in Burj el-Barajneh camp, in less than one square kilometre of squalid and impoverished conditions. The majority are families who were expelled from northern Palestine in 1948 by the Israelis. The only work available is on a casual basis and everyone depends on weekly cash wages earned mostly in the surrounding area, which is now totally destroyed.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROJECT
One of the constraints on the Palestinian children in the refugee camps is that the United Nations schools have adopted the Lebanese curriculum, for which all children must be able to read and write in both Arabic and Roman letters by the time they start primary school. If students fail their exams twice in succession in a United Nations-funded school they are expelled. Without this initial level of literacy, children face a real possibility of failing and growing up uneducated. Palestinians have traditionally placed a high premium on the education of their children as the one means they have to escape the poverty and humiliation of living as refugees in Lebanon, or under military occupation in the Occupied Territories. For their children to grow up with no chance of an education is a catastrophe.

The Early Education Centre is held in high regard by the United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). They have informed the Women's Humanitarian Organisation that the children graduating from their centre are the best students in UNRWA Kindergartens. Regardless of their ages, all children at the camp's Early Education Centre have a structured program for the day. For example, five year olds start with exercise, followed by ethics, music, painting, games, English, Arabic and maths.

The curriculum including posters, tapes, books and teaching notes are produced by the Lebanese government. Lesson plans are done in advance and monitored by the Director. To assist the mothers in the camp who have been able to find menial and low-paid employment outside the camp, the Early Education Centre opens before 7.00am and closes after 3.00pm.

Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA has been assisting the Women's Humanitarian Organisation in the Burj el-Barajneh refugee camp in Lebanon for several years with a range of projects for women and for the elderly.

© Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA 2003.
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Last Modified: Wednesday, 14-Feb-2007 16:49:46 EST
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