Early Childhood in Syria and the Tawad Educational Schools Chain

Since the onset of the Syrian Revolution to the present, Syrians have found temporary refuge in safe havens, especially in Northwestern Syria, which has become a gathering place for many who oppose Bashar al-Assad’s regime. This has led to a population increase in the area, with the number of displaced Syrians reaching about 2.1 million out of more than 4 million Syrians living in Northwestern Syria since 2021.
Many, including children, are suffering from severe traumas, to such an extent that humanitarian actors are overwhelmed by the vast needs for mental health care, particularly for children.
In response, the Syrian Future Movement (SFM) has developed a strategic plan to offer comprehensive psychosocial support in its headquarters located in both A’azaz and Afrin cities.
This plan utilizes sustainable, community-based approaches for mental health and psychosocial support, as well as enhancing skills. The plan also includes elements for education and protection specifically for children, providing safe spaces and help in developing coping mechanisms, in addition to activities that assist adults in understanding their children’s psychological, social, cognitive, physical, and linguistic development.

Tawad Schools:
The Tawad Educational Schools chain is a cornerstone in achieving the strategic plan of the Syrian Future Movement (SFM), integrating psychosocial support with developmental programs in early childhood, especially for children who have dropped out of school. At Tawad Educational Schools, we began by offering educational sessions to everyone in the area, gathering them in safe communication spaces for dialogue and consultation with specialists, both locally and abroad. These sessions, directly supervised and directed by the head of the Syrian Future Movement, Dr. Zaher Baadarani, aim to transfer expertise in post-trauma, including tragedies of loss, war, earthquakes, and other challenges faced by parents in raising their children in stressed environments. The discussions aim to assist parents who are unable to cope with the crises facing their children, as well as their own stresses as individuals and parents.

The Tawad Educational Schools chain also strives to introduce concepts of early childhood development and teach methods of providing psychosocial support to children. One of the goals of the Tawad Educational Schools chain is to alert parents to various aspects such as the importance of child development, brain growth, modern learning methods, and the concept of effective discipline.
Furthermore, Tawad Educational Schools aim to increase positive activities for children, such as encouraging children to tell and share positive stories with their families, serving as a means for children to express themselves and their personalities during their developmental stages, and enabling their parents to understand what goes on in their children’s minds.
Among the new activities we are working on is the “Safety Schedule,” where children are asked to write down the names of family members they feel safe with, in a table that prioritizes importance.
This helps parents understand who their children feel safe around, among many other initiatives.

Long-term Work:
With the success and thoughtful expansion of the Tawad Educational Schools chain, we are looking towards the project’s sustainability in the long term.
We consult with friends specialized in global standards for education in emergencies, thereby working on strengthening the bond between parents and teachers as a guarantee of developmental success.
We have reached a good stage in raising awareness about growth during early childhood stages, in addition to the contributions of psychosocial support in children’s lives.

Challenges:
Some of the challenges include:
1- Some parents lack the necessary skills to transfer the training materials, and volunteers have not committed to us without a financial incentive, which forced us to find volunteers with symbolic salaries, despite the difficulty of finding some with the required skills.
2- Some Tawad schools lack sufficient essential supplies, despite efforts to secure them through private funding.
3- Parents have found that developmental programs for children over the age of 14 are irrelevant to their interests.
4- Other challenges include the absence of parental participation due to work, the prevalence of women wearing the niqab, and the community’s rejection of the idea of controlled mixing or the presence of men and women in a public place.

Overcoming the Challenges:
1- We recommend offering incentives to children and parents along with other humanitarian programs, whether in cash, food, or other items (clothing, heating, and cleaning tools), or educational (storybooks, drawing tools, etc.).
We believe this will somewhat ensure the provision of psychosocial support and growth during early childhood stages, from birth through childhood and beyond.

2- Using mobile technology and applications to facilitate parents’ access to developmental projects in early childhood stages. Thus, providing virtual platforms like Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook, TikTok, and others could contribute to our success.

3- Establishing a national framework for early childhood development, as programs are not entrenched in this region, either before or after the revolution, due to the state of political tyranny and the authority of the Syrian regime.

Waheeba Al-Masri
Office of Family Affairs