Rash Rashed is a 15-year-old student in the ninth grade at Al-Aqsa school. She has been studying there since grade one. Basic services in Yemen have been neglected and in many areas have collapsed as a result of the conflict, with two million children out of school. School buildings are old and damaged, in desperate need of repair and rehabilitation.
Rasha found out that she suffers from a dust allergy, which was exacerbated by the poor conditions at her school. She says: “One day I fainted at the yard of the school while waiting for the exam to start. The employees at the school communicated with my father who came to school and took me to hospital for treatment. After having a check-up, the doctor informed my father about my allergy.”
Since Al-Aqsa school lacks hygiene services due to the distributions of salaries, her father decided to take her to a different private school where there is no dust due to his daughter’s sickness. Rasha says she was sad about her father’s decision because she has a great relationship with her teachers and friends.
Her parents thought a lot about which school to take her to and they also thought about their accommodation in case the new school was far away. At the beginning of the 2019 school year, Rasha’s father went to withdraw her from her school.
Thankfully, with funding from Reach Out To Asia (ROTA), CARE has been able to support the renovation of schools like Al-Aqsa. CARE provides water tanks, windows, doors and solar panels, as well as painting the interior and exterior of the buildings, and installing fibre glass boards instead of blackboards. All of this is encouraging teachers and children to return to the school, and giving conflict-affected children the chance to have an education.
