ROTA Assists Students Displaced From Nahr Bared Refugee Camp
Reach Out to Asia (ROTA) is distributing school bags and supplies to Palestinian school children forced to flee their homes by the recent fighting in the Nahr Bared refugee camp, near Tripoli, Lebanon.
Thousands of students due to sit for their end of year exams have been displaced at a critical time in their education. The events in the camp forced families and their children to evacuate Nahr Bared quickly and without time to pack any of their personal belongings. The Reach Out to Asia team has been active in the area; providing school stationery and bags to 645 pupils.
The school bag project amounted to US$15, 000, but as Omnia Nour, Director of Reach Out to Asia, explains:
"ROTA strongly supports the Education For All initiative and has joined the effort of the global community towards creating a positive change by 2015. The Achievement of this goal gets more and more difficult, especially after the occurrence of either natural or man made disasters. So much energy and resources are being diverted. More commitment and a stronger joint global effort is needed if we want to make a difference."
One of the recipients, Fatima Mahmoud Al-Ahmad a 15 year old student, who received one of the school bags and equipment spoke of her gratitude to ROTA:
" We were really in need of this kind of help. We needed schoolbags and stationary. They gave us hope and encouraged us to study and succeed despite the difficult conditions we are going through. Thank you ROTA."
Most of the students have moved from Nahr Al Bared refugee camp, 16km North of Tripoli, to Bedawi camp, approximately 20km away, in order sit for their exams.
Working in conjunction with the Al El Ershad Wal Eslah Organization, and with transportation help from the Qatar Red Crescent, ROTA distributed 645 school bags containing a copy book, engineering set, calculator, pens, pencils, erasers, sharpener and ruler to schoolchildren in grades 9 -12 (ages 14-18 years).
