My First Steps to Education

“Firyal is my first child, we eagerly awaited her to take her first steps, until war stole that from us,” Firyal’s father remembers.

Firyal is a nine-year-old child whose reality reflects more than 80 thousand Syrians. They’re people who were born healthy but lost their extremities. The reasons vary from innocently playing next to unexploded war remnants, indiscriminate bombing to merciless conflict.

No human should experience the feeling of their body being stolen away. Most definitely not when they’re children with a future ahead of them. But it’s real life for Syrians and adapting is the only way to survive.

Firyal was born into the womb of war. Despite everything, her father created a comfortable living situation celebrating her life. “I used to work abroad and came back to the village at weekends,” her father mentions. During this time, the mother and father were teaching little Firyal to take her first steps. Mother embraced her child while her father is a foot away motivating Firyal to take her first step. Finally, after a lot of encouragement, she did it, she’s unsteady but it’s a huge milestone! That’s what her parents are for, to catch her when she falls.

While joy was filling the house, a strange, unwanted sound echoed across Northwest Syria. Foreign to most of the world's children, but sadly too familiar to Syrian children. It was an airstrike.

“In 2014 and while my daughter was walking her first steps, we were hit, my child was injured. In the end, we had no choice but to amputate her left leg under the knee,” her father recalls.

After recovering, the family moved to a displacement camp. But “she waited for more than four years to receive her artificial extremity due to the large number of people in the same situation and lack of artificial extremities available,” father says. It was a race among those who needed to live a relatively normal life and it was a long hard way to recovery filled with physiotherapy.

After securing the extremity, Firyal needed to learn how to walk and with time, the extremity became her most valuable passion. Even when the earthquake struck destroying their tent, Firyal salvaged her extremity. “That day, it was freezing so, my mother turned on the heater. But when it struck, the fire ate the tent. I immediately started searching for my extremity. I don’t want to wait forever for a new one. But the flames were only getting bigger and bigger encapsulating me until my father saved me,” she recalls. After that, Firyal and her family managed to find a small place on the village’s outskirts to start over, yet again.

All of this was happening and Firyal was thinking about school. At that time, she was six years old, she should be in school. “Other children go to school on foot, they learned. I felt heartbroken. I wanted to be like other children. I want to learn too and I have an ambition, I want to be a teacher and educate children,” Firyal kept dreaming. 

“But schools here are severely destroyed because of the earthquake and war, operational schools are running at full capacity. This deprived Firyal of education. I was afraid there was no room for my daughter to enrol I am afraid for her, she needs to be comfortable at all times,” her father adds.

But Firyal’s determination and constant talk with her father about school convinced him. Her father finally agreed, he wants the best for her, he is just afraid for her. This is what fathers do, they fear for their children, if they could shield them from all the bad in the world they would. But he knew she needed to go to school.

So, “the rehabilitation work on the school in my village began and my life re-started. I cannot describe my joy. I patiently waited until it finished,” she says.

Sadly, the earthquake wiped out 2,947 schools forcing thousands of children to drop out. World Vision Syria Response and its partner 'Hand in Hand for Aid' are working towards helping her achieve her dreams. She is one of the 5,200 children who will enjoy their education as part of the rehabilitation work target 14 schools.

The transformation of these schools is possible thanks to funding from GIRO555, they’re undergoing renovations, maintenance, school supplies provision and in the near future greenery such as playing areas and gardens will be added so children like Firyals enjoy their breaks.

 





                *Name is changed to protect identity.