Focus on help for disadvantaged children

A visit to the English language classroom in the northern governorate of Dahuk's Zewa centre is little short of alarming. Ten boys, aged between nine and 11, leap up from tiny wooden desks with a deafening shout of 'welcome.' Encouraged by their teacher, they then launch into a full-throated rendition of the English alphabet song, turning seamlessly and surreally into 'Happy Birthday to you.' Then they sit down, in total silence. This is no ordinary classroom, and these are no ordinary school children. Like the rest of the 100 children who pass through the centre every year, they are either orphans, or from families so poor that even the youngest members must do their bit to make money. Ten-year old Botan is typical of this. His family is one of 1,100 living in Tenahi, one of Saddam Hussein's grim collective townships built on the outskirts of Daub, where local authorities estimate unemployment levels to be 90 percent. Formerly a farmer, Botan's father is now lucky to earn US $10 a week on building sites. For the past three years, Botan has done better, earning up to $2 a day shining shoes. "I want to be a teacher when I grow up," he told IRIN in Dahuk, looking at his teacher with a mixture of shyness and faint mischief. The Zewa Centre was opened in 2000, a year after a study by the British NGO IKR showed that there were at least 3,000 street children in the Dahuk region alone. Zewa's manager, Ashty Salem, says that number has gone up since as thousands of Kurdish refugees flood back from Iran to their home region. With lessons in English, music, theatre, sport and computers, as well as counselling sessions for the more traumatised children, Zewa now has inquiries from between 500 and 600 families a year. "We just don't have enough space, unfortunately," Salem, told IRIN, noting that his annual budget of $40,000 enabled him to employ 12 full-time staff. He is currently negotiating with the local governor to allow him to rent a disused public building and turn it into a second, larger centre. "Three years on, we now have a far clearer idea of what works and what doesn't," he said. At first, Zewa's staff aimed to take the children out of the streets entirely. Experience taught them that cutting their charges off entirely from their friends and the world they are used to can be more damaging than useful. "Zewa now serves as a safe haven, and children can come whenever they feel a need," music teacher Muhammad Zeki told IRIN. Staff now work in cooperation with the local police on what they call a night patrol. Children found working in Dahuk after eight o'clock are picked up and taken back to their families. They also work with local teachers to ensure that former pupils are continuing to attend school. Zewa's founding incidentally highlighted another major problem affecting the poorest levels of urban Kurdish society - glue-sniffing. A study in 2002 by Dr Nezar Ismat, a doctor and psychotherapist who visits the centre frequently, revealed that there were at least 400 children in Dahuk addicted to glue. "At first, we had glue-sniffers and non-glue-sniffers in here together," Salem said. "But the addicted children were disruptive and almost impossible to teach." That realisation led to the opening in June 2003 of Omit, a second centre that specialises in child drug addiction. "Omit takes in 30 children for six months at a time," Dr Ismat said. "All 30 of the first group were successfully weaned off glue. The only difficulty now is finding them something to do when they leave," he added. But the greatest source of pride to the two men is their success in persuading local judges to send children caught stealing not to juvenile reform centres, as in the past, but to Zewa or Omit. And it is indicative of the success of their work that, of the 18 boys currently serving time in Dahuk's juvenile reformatory, only three come from Dahuk itself. The rest are from neighbouring towns and villages out of reach of their rehabilitation programmes. "These centres are islands of sanity in a mad world, and it is imperative that they be allowed to expand," Christian Lagerlof, regional director of Diakonia, the Swedish NGO funding the projects, told IRIN.