Working from improvised classrooms in overcrowded shelters, charity Seenaryo is delivering educational workshops to children fleeing conflict.
Since the beginning of Israel’s second war in Lebanon in as many years, more than one million people have been displaced. Towns in the south, near the Israel-Lebanon border, have received forced evacuation orders, similar to those issued in the Gaza Strip.
Much of the area has subsequently been reduced to rubble in Israeli airstrikes. Residents do not know if they will ever be able to return.
Among the displaced are 300,000 children, forced to leave behind homes, schools and friends in search of safety.
In Beirut, the country’s capital, hundreds of buildings have been transformed into makeshift shelters. Mattresses are laid out in former schools, hospitals and stadiums to accommodate new arrivals. Every day, the numbers grow.
Inside the shelters, the reality is stark. Men, women, children and babies are crowded together, with limited access to washing or cooking facilities. Tensions arise between families, exacerbated by the stress. Aid workers scramble to source curtains to separate the rooms; otherwise, there is very little privacy.
In response to the escalating humanitarian crisis, charity Seenaryo has sent facilitators into the shelters to deliver play-based workshops for the children living there.
Carole Fakhreddine is Seenaryo’s Head of Education in Lebanon. She describes the reality for these children: “It can be frightening for them, because it’s a new space, they’re sharing a big room with other families they’ve never met.”
“One of the children was saying, ‘I miss the smell of my home’.”
Compounding this are the sounds of war, which are never far away: “At night, you hear everything a lot more, like the sound of bombing, the sound of the warplanes.”
Around 85% of schools in Lebanon have closed, moving teaching online; in the shelters, where internet connection is unreliable, many students are missing out altogether.
Over the course of the five-day workshops, Seenaryo’s aims are two-fold. During the sessions, students have the opportunity to participate in educational games and activities, learn in an age-appropriate setting and regain some semblance of childhood.
But with limited time in each location, facilitators also try to equip children with skills they can use in the weeks and months ahead. Carole describes one exercise that focuses on steady breathing: “Whenever there is a sound of bombing, they just use this breathing to reassure themselves that this is far away, it’s just a sound, it’s okay, I’m okay.”
The sessions encourage social interaction, which many have been deprived of. “These children have been through two years of devastating war. It’s like they’ve kind of forgotten how to socialise,” says Carole.
“We bring these children together to make them interact, meet each other, know the names of each other, play together, so once we leave, at least they can make this bond together and enjoy this as much as possible.”
Playing imaginary games allows students to escape their reality for a moment. One interactive story features the character Mush Mush: a teddy bear carrying a small backpack.
Mush Mush travels the world, by air, sea and train. The children travel with him, acting out their journey: at the beach, they are swimming; in the air, they are flying, arms outstretched like an aeroplane.
Seenaryo is a charity founded on the importance of play. Established in 2015 in response to an influx of Syrian refugees to Lebanon, it began as a series of theatre workshops for children in camps in Beirut and the Beqaa Valley.
Since then, its projects have expanded into Palestine, Syria and Jordan. These days, much of Seenaryo’s work focuses on training teachers on ways to incorporate play into their lessons.
Their app, the Playkit, delivers learning materials and resources to classrooms in underserved communities, even when global conflict makes it difficult to provide training in person.
Organisers have found that play has a universally positive impact. “It’s the natural way for children to learn,” says Carole. “It’s good for cognitive development. They become more creative, they can work on their critical thinking; it’s good for language and communication.”
“For children that are, let’s say, shy or who have any learning difficulties, whenever we are implementing these types of play-based activities from the Playkit in the classroom, they interact more, they feel like they are part of the group.”
In Lebanon, Seenaryo’s emergency response has reached more than 200 children in the last few weeks.
One student, Awalia, arrived to the first session showing signs of significant trauma. He was so scared that he wouldn’t let the teacher close the classroom door.
After a week of attending the workshops, coordinators noticed his confidence grow. “On the final session, he asked them specifically to shut the door because he wanted to have this space”, says Carole.
His mother told facilitators that he was excited when he returned, telling her about the weather and the seasons that he’d learned in class.
Meanwhile, outside the classroom, the war wages on, complicating the efforts of facilitators. “There’s always the sound of drones above our heads,” says Carole. “Whenever you want to focus, the noise of these drones in the sky is very, very annoying.”
Even living at home, Carole is on constant alert. She keeps the windows cracked in case they break in an explosion, and always has a small bag packed in case she needs to evacuate.
A recent ceasefire brought hope to the country, but holds no guarantees: reports of Israeli violations came just hours after it was announced. “We cannot plan anything after Sunday [when the ceasefire ends]; we don’t know what will happen, neither at work nor in our daily life.”
It is feared that the long-term impacts of the war will be most acute in young children. According to Global Paediatric, “in environments where fear, mistrust, and violence become normalised, children may struggle to form secure attachments or to envision a hopeful future”.
Facilitators like Carole know this all too well. “At this age, it’s very critical, because this trauma when they are three to eight or ten years old, it really stays with them as they grow up.”
“We try as much as possible to address this, to use tools that are fun.”
Featured image by Abbas Hamze.