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Syrian girls on their first day at high school in Arbat refugee camp Picture: G. Hassan/IRC

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By Zena Itani, International Rescue Committee information and content officer in Jordan

�鶹APP�Our girls are sitting at home doing nothing,�鶹APP� exclaimed Kabira, a Syrian mother of four daughters who now lives in a camp in Iraq. �鶹APP�They should be in school, so we are planning a demonstration.�鶹APP�

The women�鶹APP�s committee of the Arbat refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq was in session.

While Arbat has a primary school to accommodate the camp�鶹APP�s 1900 Syrian families who have escaped their country�鶹APP�s civil war, there was no high school. Some 245,000 Syrians have sought safety in Iraq.

�鶹APP�The school administrators say it is out of their hands and they can�鶹APP�t find teachers to work in the secondary school,�鶹APP� added Nadia, another committee member and mother. �鶹APP�But we will not stop until they do.�鶹APP�

Residents were excited when a high school was built last year but classes never started. After generously supporting refugee teacher salaries for three years, the Kurdistan Regional Government�鶹APP�s capacity to continue to add teachers to the payroll ran out.

So the women�鶹APP�s committee, whose mission is to minimise risk of harm to woman and girls and ensure they feel safe in a difficult environment, took action. �鶹APP�

Last December, 55 residents marched through the camp with signs delivering a clear message: Open Our Schools.

Students get down to some hard work at the new high school��Picture: G. Hassan/IRC

�鶹APP�We protested during the 16 Days of Gender Activism,�鶹APP� recalls Kabira, referring to an annual campaign to end violence against women and girls worldwide. �鶹APP�We had banners. We talked about child marriage.

�鶹APP�It wasn�鶹APP�t just the women�鶹APP�s committee �鶹APP� it was the whole community. Every man, every woman, sent letters and talked to the camp management.�鶹APP�

Girls who are out of school and stuck at home are at an increased risk of isolation, abuse and early marriage.

�鶹APP�We want girls to get high-school certificates and go to university,�鶹APP� says Maysa, another member, noting that a high school education for girls was standard in Syria before the war.

And it wasn�鶹APP�t just the adults in the camp protesting. Twenty students joined the march and other girls wrote and delivered an impassioned letter to the camp administration.

�鶹APP�We hope you�鶹APP�ll hear our demands about our most important right,�鶹APP� they pleaded, �鶹APP�to complete our education despite what we�鶹APP�ve gone through and where we are living now.�鶹APP�

All the work and all the organising paid off.

Younger Syrian Kurdish children walk to school at Arbat camp

On February 14, Syrian girls eager to continue their education walked into a functioning high-school classroom for the first time. The women�鶹APP�s committee was trained and started by the �鶹APP�s women and girls community centre, a private, female-only space at the edge of Arbat camp.

In heated trailers lined with bookshelves, women and girls meet with social workers and participate in counselling, life-skills training, and other activities.

Access to education is just one of a growing number of problems facing camp residents. Food aid is being cut and jobs are scarce. Women complain that daily life is deteriorating.

�鶹APP�If people can�鶹APP�t find food, they have two choices: they will die in the sea [going to Europe], or they will die here,�鶹APP� Maysa states bluntly.

Many of Maysa�鶹APP�s fellow residents have even returned to warring Syria, leaving behind rows of empty shelters. As governments and armed groups try to maintain a ceasefire in Syria, refugee women are vowing to continue to fight for their families�鶹APP� futures.

�鶹APP�The suffering we face will add value to our girls�鶹APP� lives,�鶹APP� says another mother and committee member.

�鶹APP�Every home is a school for a girl; every mother is a teacher. We will show them how to manage. We won�鶹APP�t let our girls go through the same things that we have.�鶹APP�

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of women featured in the story.

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More than 80 million children around the world have had their education disrupted by emergencies, including conflicts and natural disasters.

You can send a message to leaders meeting at the first ever World Humanitarian Summit in May �鶹APP� ensuring they commit to set up a new platform to fund education in emergencies.

�鶹APP� the children�鶹APP�s charity behind A World at School �鶹APP� has launched the #SafeSchools campaign to keep up public pressure. .