Palestinian College Students in Lebanon Vow to Aid Their Countrymen from Syria

The Syrian conflict continues prising apart Palestinian refugees from that beleaguered country’s ten official and three unofficial Palestinian camps forcing the majority to flee to Lebanon despite the latter outlawing for Palestinians, illegally expelled from their homes during the 1948 Nakba, of even the most elementary civil right to work or to own a home.

Palestinian refugees make up the second most massive scale displacement from the Syria crisis with an estimated 65% of the 500,000 Palestinians in Syria having been displaced, along with 7 million Syrians as it becomes ever more difficult for Palestinians to flee as they are increasingly harassed or abused in neighboring countries while totally barred from seeking refuge in their own country, Palestine.

Approximately 255,000 Palestinian refugees are displaced in Syria with over 200,000 in Damascus, around 6,600 in Aleppo, 4,500 in Latakia, 3,050 in Hama, 6,450 in Homs and 13,100 in Dera’a. 9,657 PR from Syria have registered with UNRWA for assistance in Jordan and 49,000 in Lebanon.

UNRWA reports approximately 6,000 Palestinian refugees in Egypt, 1,100 in Libya, 1,000 in Gaza and more than 1000 fled to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Intermittent and sporadic hostilities including airstrikes, shelling and mortars continue and during the past two months around the camps of Yarmouk, Husseiniyah, Sbeineh, Barzeh, Jobar, Qaboun, Khan Eshieh and Dera’a. a total 125 PR were reportedly killed as a result of the hostilities: 22 in Yarmouk, 18 in Dera’a, 13 in Husseiniyah and 12 in Khan Eshieh among others. This is the highest number of reported Palestinians deaths for months. Yarmouk and Sbeineh are currently sealed off with UNRWA increasingly concerned about the well-being of those trapped.

Approximately 65,000 Palestinian refugees from Syrian camps are currently in Lebanon. The majority, 32% are in Saida, 19% are in Tyre, 17% in central Lebanon and 16% each in north Lebanon and Beqaa according to data given this observer during visits to UNWRA HQ in Damascus.

Arriving Palestinian students report, as UNWRA has documented, that schools partially hosting displaced Palestinians and Syrians and also operating as shelters and that three shifts for students are not uncommon nor are shifts for sleeping. The high number of school closures, many schools damaged, parents unwilling to send their children to school for security reasons and a large percentage of the population constantly on the move. There is uncertainty whether even emergency education provisions are sustainable for the coming winter months, as well as shortages of food, decreasing housing availability and limited access, if at all, to school supplies and whether Palestinians in Lebanon and neighboring countries, like large number of their Syrian hosts, will have access to education at all.

Through no fault of its own, UNWRA’s delivery of education to the overwhelming majority of Palestinian refugee children in Syria has been severely impaired and in Lebanon there are additional problem.

Recently compiled data with respect to Palestinian refugees education crisis is contained in a joint UNWRA-EU, publication entitled “Back to School, Syria Emergency: Palestine Refugee Children”. Among its findings are that two-thirds of Palestinian refugee youngsters in Syria have been affected by school closures. Of the 118 UNWRA schools in Syria, 68 are closed due to war damage, 10 are being used as emergency shelters for displaced persons, 40 are operational as of 11/11/13. In addition UNWRA and the Syrian Ministry of Education have cooperated to set up schools in shared buildings.

UNRWA is operating 694 elementary and preparatory schools across its five fields of operation, as well as eight secondary schools in Lebanon, providing free basic education for around 550,000 Palestinian refugee children but they do not have the classroom space for the thousands of arriving Syrian youngsters in Lebanon where fewer than 35% of Palestinian children from Syria have been enrolled in schools. In addition, UNWRA’s program budget for 2012-13 projects a financial situation where the disparity between budget, income and expenditure has become chronic. Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria bear the burden in diminished health care and compromised education.

Despite being a resolute advocate for UNWRA, this observer is aware of that its budget warrants scrutinizing. Almost 75 percent of UNWRA’s budget, or $675 million, between 2010-13 was locked in to pay staff salaries. Salary expenditure has gone up from $400 million in 2008 to more than $502 million in 2013. Yet its spending on medical supplies in 2013 is approximately the same as it was in 2009.

As American University of Beirut Professor Rosemay Sayigh reminds us, before we blame Lebanon totally for their harsh policies towards Palestinian refugees, we should remember that if the “Great Powers” had insisted on Israel repatriating the refugees after the 1948 Nakba according to UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (December 1948), the refugee problem would not exist today, and the Arab states would not have to deal with it.

Against this disturbing backdrop is the fact that local NGO’s have few available resources to assist with refugee education. Yet, there are a few ad hoc bright spots and encouragements to Palestinian students coming mainly from the Palestinian community itself in Lebanon and some friends of Palestine abroad.

One example is this year’s establishment of the Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program (sssp-lb.com) made possible by tuition grants for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon from a remarkable American patriot and humanitarians.

Since the few months of its existence, the SSSP has awarded 99 tuition grants in Shatila and Burj al Barajeneh camps and plans for 150 more Palestinian scholarships for spring semester in Ein el Helwe camp. According to Zeinab el-Hajj, Executive Director of the SSSP, each tuition grant recipients is committed to giving back to her or his community especially in the field of education.

Already many scholarship grantees have committed to tutoring their countrymen arriving from Syria or in the harshest camps including the three noted above where dropout rates are highest and graduations’ are lowest. “We at SSSP do not seek out only the youngsters with the highest GPA’s we want to help those who without our tuition grants otherwise may well not even go to college or if they do, are likely to drop out.”

An American friend of Palestine urged the assembled scholarship recipients in the slums of Burg al Barajeh camp last month, when 80 Palestinians youngest received tuition grants: “To pursue your dreams of a better life for yourselves and your families pending your return to Palestine.” He reminded the cheering students that, ““An education is forever and its purpose is to enjoy a more productive lifetime while seeking to fulfill all of what each of you is capable as you give back to your respective communities. Pursuing higher education is a quintessential and noble act of Resistance against oppression and occupation everywhere. Education cannot be ethnically cleansed, stolen, tortured, jailed, uprooted, bulldozed, massacred, murdered, bombed or burned down. Rather, staying in school and pursuing ones dream is what your cherished for-bearers, who were forced from their homes and lands into Lebanon and trekked from Palestine- approximately 130,000- in the summer and fall of 1948, would want for you, and expect of you.”

As one on one tutoring by SSSP scholarship recipients increases from within the camps of Lebanon in tutoring support of their countrymen from Syria, all people of good will cannot but be inspired by the idealism, energy and commitment of Palestinians pursuing higher education in Lebanon who support their community as was the norm in history when Palestinians were considered at the vanguard of education in this region.

Franklin P. Lamb, LLM,PhD
Legal Advisor, The Sabra-Shatila Scholarship Program, Shatila Camp www.SSSP-lb.com
Board Member, The Sabra Shatila Foundation and the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Beirut-Washington DC