Creating Mobile Education in Gaza in the midst of War

Creating Mobile Education in Gaza

To Meet a Critical Unmet Need.

Hi, I am Liz Loh-Taylor. Singapore born, residing in Australia. I am a humanitarian photographer who has worked tirelessly to document the stories of communities and people in need throughout the world for the past 18 years. I have worked in many conflict ridden parts of the world including Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Sudan/South Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and many others. My focus has primarily been humanitarian and ensuring that pertinent stories are shared, on behalf of those who have little means of doing so for themselves.

In light of the conflict in Gaza and the impacts of that, with many key infrastructures being destroyed including educational facilities, my path and that of Nur Nassar’s crossed when a friend in Gaza mentioned her initiatives in one of our conversations. I learnt about her beautiful initiative of providing children with education despite the war eight months down the track. Having to evacuate frequently, Nour has come up with the idea of mobile education so that she could provide schooling for the children regardless of where they have to evacuate to.

Nour Abbas Nassar, a 24 year old Palestinian based in Gaza, a trained lawyer and UNICEF field educator, had a wonderful and salient idea to provide education to children in Gaza. Her idea of 'Schools Without Borders' was one that I believed was notable especially in this instance where we have little idea as to when the children of Gaza will be able to return to any form of schooling at all. Nour has been keeping children in school via her mobile education initiative which involves educators in the Gaza Strip, whether they are displaced or not. This has provided children in Gaza with hope in the midst of abject darkness, amongst all the loss and destruction they have to endure and witness every single day.

Here is Nour's story and details of her initiative in her own words.

Schools Without Borders: The candle of education in the darkness of war and displacement.

‏I am writing to you while I am lost between memories of the painful past and shattered reality, and yet I was able to ignite in the darkness a spark of hope and faith in change for the better.

My name is Nour Abbas Nassar. I am twenty-four years old. I am a Palestinian from occupied Jaffa. I have lived since my birth in the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. I spend most of my time in our beautiful city of Gaza. Despite the destruction that befell it, I still see it as the most beautiful place.

‏Before October 7, 2023, I was a trained lawyer, legal researcher, and field educator in one of the UNICEF projects related to positive education and combating violence against children. I was also a trainer on the subject of conflict transformation and spreading peace, and an activist for children with autism and people with disabilities. I am not here to list my biography or tell a sob story, but I wanted to mention some of my achievements that I am proud of and that bear witness to my dreams and ambitions and that I am not a number. I was also running after my dream and looking for a scholarship to study a master’s degree outside the country, but the war has turned my life upside down.

Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza, I have been afflicted with severe panic, which led to my isolation from society and the cessation of my communication and social relationships, for a period of 57 days. I stayed in my room, haunted by the ghosts of memories of previous wars, since the first painful and terrible scene I saw in 2008 on my way home from school, where I saw the bodies of martyrs and their body parts. In the middle of the street. It was the first war during which I lost my mother, but God saved her thanks to him. I pray to God very much to save my family from this war. I have suffered a lot of pain in successive wars on the Gaza Strip to this day, and every time I lost a part of me.

‏While I was living in deep internal isolation, I was thinking: How will I survive this crazy world without going crazy? So I decided to shake off the dust of loneliness and surrender to pain and to challenge the difficulties. I began setting my annual plan and initiated internal change. In order to overcome the darkness outside, we must first overcome it on the inside. On the darkness within us, I helped my sister by drawing on the walls of my room as an attempt to breathe new life into me, and then I decided to take a tour of my city, whose features had changed, so I returned writing a journal which I enjoyed doing and also made it a habit to check on the city’s conditions which included getting back into community activities, volunteer work with local organisations and the like.

‏During one of my inspection tours, I realised while playing with a group of children who were equivalent to the first grade that their knowledge were not at the level it should be. I felt immense sadness for them, as their right to an education had been robbed of them. They had forgotten that they were children by no fault of their own. The children themselves were saddened by the fact that they were lacking in their academic knowledge. A feeling of disappointment overcame me. I took on the responsibility of teaching them, attempting to also help them and their families.

As a child, I've always dreamt of becoming a teacher having played the role of a young teacher at home and at school. I made these days during the war, an opportunity to realize my childhood dream in a way. I created the mobile school. As my specialty isn't in education, I started researching about the concepts of active learning and its methodology to develop an integrated educational program that suits the children's current reality, and from here, the “Schools Without Borders” initiative began. This initiative aims to reach into the hearts of children and light the way for them towards a better future in the midst of a dark reality.

This is a trialed and successful initiative and I am excited to share with you some of the outcomes to date. Again, since October 2023, the children’s eyes are filled with hope and joy again.

‏On the morning of May 6th, I, along with many people in Rafah, became displaced and tasted the bitterness of homelessness. I would like to point out that I wrote this story to you days before my displacement from Rafah. Despite the difficulties of moving during displacement, I managed to take our mobile school bag with me to my displacement location in Nuseirat Camp. I won't lie to you, I personally suffer the anxiety of having been displaced from one place to another, barely surviving the war myself. However am still determined to continue this mobile education initiative and hope to save the future of the children by providing them both education and hope.

‏We do need your support to enable the continuation of this initiative in providing a form of education to children in the refugee camps of Gaza. Every donation, large or small, contributes to building a new generation, which is rapidly been decimated.

With your support, we can all save these children's lives and futures and build a brighter path for them.

‏Thank you for your support of my vision, and I will be very grateful for any contribution you make to making my dream and the dreams of the children of Gaza come true.

Hope flourishes and miracles come true.