Back to school lessons for Lebanese students include warning to avoid cluster bombs
Source: AFP, 23-11-2006
TYRE: Jamming schools spared by this summer`s war with "Israel", students across South Lebanon have started a difficult year, trying to overcome traumas and learning a life-or-death lesson - how to avoid being blasted by unexploded ordnance. In a private school in the village of Hanaway, east of the coastal city of Tyre, several hundred students, aged between five and 11, attend a one-hour session about the dangers of cluster bombs.
"Israel" dropped more than 4 million bomblets on Lebanon during the war, according to the United Nations. Approximately one quarter failed to explode and still pose a threat.
Since the August 14 cessation of hostilities, 23 people have been killed and another 136 wounded in Lebanon after stepping on or handling unexploded components of cluster bombs, according to an AFP count.
The students are taught about the dangers of unexploded ordnance through cartoons, photographs of various types of bombs and question-and-answer sessions with the teachers.
"The first message that we relay to them is not to approach the area and to inform their parents if they ever see cluster bombs," says Rana Alijami, a teacher from the Italian non-governmental organization Intersos, which is participating in the program organized by the UN children`s fund (UNICEF).
The students applaud. The message seems to have been well received. "We should not approach the bombs, we should not go to remote places," says 7-year-old Rayan.
But teachers say that parents and society in general also have key roles to play.
"Teaching the parents is also very essential," says UNICEF spokeswoman Nicole Ireland.
"Whatever you tell the children, if their parents tell them for example that they could touch the cluster bombs, they will listen to them, and all our efforts would have been in vain," she says.
The task is made more difficult by the fact that "the war has caused traumas to all family members," says Intersos official Francesca Scarioni.
"The parents do not know how to help their children because they are themselves traumatized," she says.
Teachers are also trained to identify children most affected by the trauma.
"Some of them have witnessed the bombardments, others have seen their own homes destroyed," says Maha Fouani, a public school English teacher who has attended training sessions organized by UNICEF and Lebanon`s Education Ministry.
"We teach them to express their feelings in order to help them forget," she says.
Private and public schools in Lebanon - which host about one million students - have been badly hit by the war. Official figures show that between 40 and 50 schools have been totally destroyed while 300 others have been damaged. Most of them are in South Lebanon.
The war also delayed the return to school this year until mid-October. Some slightly damaged schools have been swiftly repaired through emergency funds - mostly from Arab states. Many schools that survived the war are operating on a double-shift system.
The return to school was important "to allow the children to return to normal life" and help them overcome trauma "by living in a safe environment," says the UNICEF spokeswoman.
"But school on its own cannot help the children find their bearings, their parents and society should also help them," says educational adviser Omayma Khadra.
"And Lebanese children feel that their country is not a place where they can live in security," she says.
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