Raya is 8 years old and lives in an informal settlement in Iraq with her family.
We met her during our first mission in the Al Shiraq district where we are now working to ensure that 945 children from the Al-Jumailah school can study. We stopped to talk to her mother who told us their story:
"Raya was 6 years old when some groups of violent men came to our village bringing death and destruction. To save ourselves we had to run away leaving everything behind; for a while we stayed in Mosul and then in the Jeddah camp. This is how we started our life as displaced persons.
After about two years in the camp, the Iraqi government decided that all the displaced population should return to their area of origin. So we set off, but when we arrived at our village, we found our house destroyed.
We had no choice but to go and live in a tent, in a camp where there are many other families, but everything is missing here: there are no health services and above all, neither my husband nor I have permanent jobs. I am also very worried about my daughter: she goes to school every day but we have never been able to buy her the books and notebooks she needs to study. I don't want her to end up like me, I want her to grow up educated, to be able to work one day and have a good life.
Thanks also to the support of our donors, COOPI Suisse has taken charge of the school in Al-Jumailah, the 945 boys and girls who attend it and its 20 teachers.
Over the past few months, we have supplied text and exercise bookswhich have been distributed to the neediest children, such as Raya. For the beginning of the school year in autumn, we also want to provide the school with new desks, blackboards, maps and the educational and recreational material needed by the teachers to ensure a quality education for these children who, at such a young age, have had to experience the terror of conflicts.
