(By Faris al-Rifai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)
More than 400 students of “al-Owdah School”for Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Antakya, Turkey at the brink of losing their opportunity of learning after the owner of its building threaten of closing it if the school has not paid the rent.
The school has been opened in 1st August 2014 occupies two levels consist of 11 rooms, its capacity reaches to 800 students, but till now almost 400 one have only been registered.
The school works for two shifts, females in the morning and males in the afternoon, while teaching staff till now work as volunteers without any salary.
The school’s administration tried to collect TRY50 from each student to cover the rent, but most students did not have that amount of money, Gazi Hussein, the manager told Zaman al-Wasl.
The school manager explained to Zaman al-Wasl that they appealed to the National Coalition and its member like Waleed al-Omari and Michael Kilo, even they contacted Ayman Abo Hashim, the responsible for the Authority of Palestinian refugees in the interim Government, but there was no respond.
“Even when we requested help from the Syrian Education Commission and the Turkish Humanitarian and relief agency, but they replied that we need to change the administration.”
Hussein detailed that after all that attempts to generate fund, the building’s owner came with 15 people to the school to evacuate them from the building and seize equipments and furniture if he did not receive the outstanding rent. “We needed to send students home and after long discussion with him, he agreed to give us time till this Friday to pay him the rent or the school would be permanently closed”.
Explaining some problems face teaching and schools for Syrian refugees in Turkey, al-Owdah school’s manager mentioned that teaching staff in his school worked all that time voluntarily, and there are many school struggling like his school, besides there is no unified curriculum to all school.
From his side, the responsible for the Authority Palestinian refugees Authority in the Interim Government replied to accusation of neglecting and ignoring the school’s requests by explaining that the Authority has no responsibility toward the school because it is administratively and financially follows the Turkish Government and the Syrian Interim Government.
Abo Hashim added that he explained to the school the real situation of the interim government as it is bankrupted and there is no ability to fund and help, adding that al-Owdah school had too many problems.
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