For Many Kids, Going Back to School Is BYOC (Bring Your Own Chair)
The long, brutal civil war in South Sudan has forced 1.8 million children out of school, but so many are still determined to get an education. UNICEF South Sudan is doing everything that it can to make that possible.
Since 2013, after war erupted in South Sudan, a horrifying number of children have been forced from the classroom because their schools were destroyed — or because they had to flee their homes. More and more teachers also left as they tried to escape the violence themselves.
But many children in South Sudan still cling tightly to a simple dream: “I want to go to school.”
In response, UNICEF launched its Education in Emergency program. Located near camps for the displaced, UNICEF-supported schools provide safe spaces and educational opportunities for the children who attend. But enough equipment and supplies aren‘t always available.
At seven in the morning, outside one such school, hundreds of children arrive eagerly balancing objects on their heads. Some carry empty cans of food aid, others broken buckets and small stoves.
These items aren‘t part of a science project. Instead, the kids will use them as chairs in classrooms that consist of little more than thatched walls, dirt floors and a blackboard.
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Ten-year-old Nyayang carries an old, broken UNICEF water bucket to school because there‘s nothing to sit on during class. “When I grow up I want to be a teacher to help teach my own people!“ she says.
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“My mom cooks for us on this stove and I use it as a chair in school,” says Nyaboth, 6, a second-year primary school student. “When I come back home after classes, she takes it away again to cook dinner for us.”
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“I was very frightened by the war. I saw so many people wounded and men shooting guns ... I feel safe here ... and want to keep coming to school,“ says Nyapuor, 9, as she sits on a battered USAID food can.
Dang Madang, a teacher at the UNICEF-supported Hope Primary School explained, “These children have seen and witnessed things no adult, let alone a child, should ever have witnessed. Teaching them science, math and English is the best thing we can do ... to ensure their safe futures.”
Please support UNICEF's work in South Sudan.
All photos courtesy of UNICEF South Sudan and photographer Sebastian Rich.
HOW TO HELP
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War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
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