As the conflict in Syria continues, the disruption to the student daily life has stretched far beyond daily air strikes and limited resources. Many students find themselves with no prospects of a future studies or career as a result of the ongoing crisis. Since the beginning of the school year 2014/2015, Arastan Anamel School has provided varied practical and vocational classes in different subjects, such as: nursing, first aid and civil defense to build the skills of the students.  The nursing and first aid classes have designed to offer the students different ways on how to stop someone’s bleeding and bandaging their wound and how to deal with emergencies that can strike anytime and anywhere. The purposes of these classes are to encourage the students to be confident in their skills and be capable of saving lives of others whenever the need arises.

The classes have also aimed to acquaint the students with basic lifesaving knowledge and skills to ensure adequate response should occur in the current dire and challenging environment. The classes have been considered to show the students how they can save lives in conflict situations and be heroes by providing first aid in emergencies. The training program also has aimed to provide students with opportunities to acquire skills that they can use to create a source of livelihood in the long term. Due to the ongoing conflict in Syrian, some residential districts are shelled continuously for no apparent reason but systematically and unlawfully demolished thousands of residential buildings. Ghadeer is living in one of these areas that are deserted of the people due to the unending airstrikes that aimed to destroy most of the surrounding houses. She is a student at Arastan Anamel School at the age of sixteen.

Ghadeer has suffered when her home was shelled, and her father and younger brother were severely injured and the paramedics were delayed due to the intensity of the shelling. Ghadeer had to witness the intensified bleeding of her father and her brother. “I was very scared, and I wished if I could do something to rescue them,” said Ghadeer. Lastly, she managed to seek help, but unfortunately she lost her little brother only a few hours later. This devastating incident has left excessive impact on Ghadreer’s life and for that reason she decided to join Arastan Anamel School to peruse her education and join the nursing and first aid class. “I feel that this class is very important and of great interest to the students,” she said. 

 

Ghadeer had tears in her eyes when she was telling the story of her brother that she lost. “I am now able to do something that if I will be in a similar situation and I hope that I can save someone’s life”. “It is significant that the nursing class is offered as part of the school activity classes and is delivered by nursing specialists during the first school semester”.