Press Release: Displacement Increases the Vulnerability of Iraqi Children

Yakout's Story — Beirut, Lebanon

Yakout, at home, with her giant bear.

Yakout is only 6, but she has seen great difficulties. She is one of hundreds of displaced Iraqi children now living in Beirut after being forced to flee her home in Iraq.

On June 21, 2005, Yakout and her family left Iraq after relatives received death threats. The left with only the clothes on their backs.

While not wealthy, Yakout's family led a good life in Baghdad. Here in Jordan their home is tiny. When they all go to bed, they cannot close the front door. Facilities are rudimentary and life is not easy, but at least they have each other.

Her parents are enormously proud of their four children. At first the family lived illegally in Beirut; later they registered in order for the children to go to school.

Even though the siblings have struggled with homesickness and problems in settling into a new culture, things are improving. They are confident and smiling, and the girls seem happier now that they have started school.

Last summer the children attended a Save the Children summer camp that offered a safe and structured place for them to learn and play.

Yakout, foreground, and her sisters do their homework.

Save the Children is working with the Jordanian Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education, and to support children so that they stay in school and progress to the next level. Education helps displaced children return to normalcy, and provides structure and routine in their lives. 

But most importantly, education gives children and their families hope for a better, more peaceful future.

Yakout is in the first grade, and is excited to be learning both English and math in her first term. She has become very fond of her new teacher, Miss Rula, and she has three new friends.

Her father, Abbas, strongly believes that education is a road leading to hope and happiness, and a way of moving out of poverty.

Six-year-old Yakout is excited about going to school and making new friends in Beirut.

In Baghdad he owned and ran a grocery store. Now he works 14 hours a day in a shop selling artificial flowers. Although money is tight, he is adamant that his children receive an education:

"School is number one," he says. "More important than food, more important than anything else. The children build their lives on their education. It enables them to realize dreams and ambitions and to form a new life."

Abbas himself once dreamed of being a lawyer, but his parents could not afford to give him an education. “This is not going to happen to my children,” he adds. He has paid for additional English classes so that his children can, he hopes, reach the level of Lebanese pupils.

Read more about our current response for displaced Iraqis in Jordan