Dubai: Dubai Cares has distributed 50,000 school packs to children in Jordan affected by the Syrian crisis.
As part of its Back to School initiative, Dubai Cares distributed school kits in five provinces of Jordan: Ajloun, Irbid, Karak, Ma’an and Tafilleh, with the support of Save the Children.
Dubai Cares launched the Back to School edition of its Volunteer Emirates initiative in June to support children driven into Jordan from their homes in Syria.
The programme received strong support from the UAE community as 3,000 volunteers came together to assemble the kits during Ramadan.
Tareq Al Gurg, CEO of Dubai Cares, said: “Equipping these school children with the necessary tools that would help provide a fresh start to the new academic year, is in alignment with Dubai Cares’ commitment to help children affected by conflict and protracted crises to go back to school with minimum disruption. Dubai Cares’ initiative also recognises Union Coop’s immensely generous sponsorship for this initiative, supported by a group of UAE-based passionate volunteers, to provide hope for a brighter future to these children and remind them that the world has not abandoned them.”
Rania Malek, CEO of Save the Children, said: “On behalf of Save the Children Jordan, I would like to extend our heartfelt appreciation to Dubai Cares for their generous support and their dedicated team and volunteers who assembled 50,000 backpacks and school kits which will be distributed among underprivileged students from all nationalities in host communities... This support gives us such a great push forward to keep delivering hope to the most marginalised and deprived children across the kingdom.”
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported last year that school-aged children and youth accounted for almost one-third of the 633,644 officially-registered Syrian refugees, with more than 90,000 of these children being left without access to education. Due to this influx of refugees, public schools in Jordan have responded by restructuring the school day to accommodate both Jordanian and Syrian students.
