Worldwide, around 80 million people are currently on the run - almost as many as Germany has inhabitants. 11 million refugees are from Syria. 6 million of them live as so-called internally displaced persons in their own country, the remaining refugees are distributed among neighboring countries. What all these people have in common is that they have neither a home, nor a job, nor sufficient food, nor access to medical care or education.
Confronted with these numbers, one might throw one's hands up in horror and think resignedly, "That's bad, but what can I do ...?" Not so Jaqueline Flory: The Munich native has been building tent schools in Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria since 2015. And that's only because she wanted to show her children that you can very well do something. In the meantime, her commitment has become a full-time job at the Zeltschule e. V. association she founded.
It all began during the great wave of refugees that reached Germany and thus also Munich in 2015. Jaqueline Flory's children were five and seven years old at the time. As they talked at the kitchen table about where these people came from and why they fled, both children were dismayed: "It's a pity we can't do anything for them," said Jacqueline's son, making the decisive remark that got the project rolling. Jacqueline Flory decided to work with her children to come up with an idea of how to help these people. "Our project was born out of a desire to prove that it's not just governments, Steve Jobs, Unicef or Mark Zuckerberg who can change the world or significantly improve other people's lives. This potential is in each and every one of us," says the Munich native, describing her motivation.
A humanitarian drama in slow motion
As a trained Arabic translator, Jacqueline Flory is very familiar with Arab culture. So it made sense for her to want to help directly on the ground: "We give people the opportunity to wait for the end of the war in their home country." But both the Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the many internally displaced persons in Syria live under the most difficult conditions and without hope of improvement in the near future. Many of them have been in makeshift tent cities for 10 years without access to education. Thus, the generation that is supposed to rebuild their country after the war is growing up illiterate. This is where Jaqueline Flory wanted to start. For almost nine months, she collected money through various school campaigns at her children's elementary school to be able to finance a school. "In the summer vacations of 2016, the time had come and we flew to Lebanon to build and open our first school," says the Munich native.
30 schools and 7,000 children taught
This first school, the Giraffe School, was to be just the beginning. "We had planned to build and maintain a single school. And then it just kept going," says Jacqueline Flory. Today, there are already 30 schools - 15 in Lebanon, 15 in Syria - that the Tent School Association runs. Every day, 7,000 children are taught there by teachers who have also fled. And that's not all: In the last six years, the Munich-based association has initiated much more than originally planned, because the support does not stop at the construction of tent schools.
The tent school wants to make life more livable
The tent school is the center of the camp.
In order for the children to attend classes at all, their parents must be prevented from sending them to work. In Lebanon, adult refugees are prohibited from working, whereas child labor is in a gray area and is not punished. As a result, many of the refugee children have to work in the fields to generate at least a little income for the family. To allow the children to go to school, Zeltschule e. V. therefore provides everyone in the family with water, food, medicine, clothing and firewood. Further support is offered in the form of training programs for young people or literacy courses and handicraft workshops for women. "Since people have had to live a more than rudimentary life in 'transitional tents' for 10 years now, we want to make their lives more livable in as many ways as possible," explains Jacqueline Flory. This includes the Tent School Bakery, which bakes and distributes flatbread daily because it is an important part of Syrian culture.
Tent School: A Family Project
What makes the project special is that Jaqueline Flory's children were involved in every step of its creation. From the idea to the implementation to the regular contact and maintenance of the schools: "During all Bavarian school vacations, my children and I are directly on site," says Flory. "And both my children and I have made deep friendships at the camps. We've accompanied many families for years, and we've become part of their family and they've become part of ours." At first, she says, it was difficult for all three to see the conditions under which the refugees must live there. The children were particularly struck by the fact that the tents had no windows and there were no toys. All the more reason for the siblings to want to make life in the camps more bearable - in a variety of ways. Today, the association regularly carries out activities at German schools, the proceeds of which benefit the refugee camps.
"The kids believe again that good things can happen."
The impact of building the tent schools in the camps is amazing. The schools have become the focal point of the camps and are changing the lives of the refugees. Jaqueline Flory brings hope, joy of life and plans for the future with the brightly painted tents. And once again it becomes clear: education is enormously important! "During the construction of the first school, I spoke with many children and asked them about their dreams and plans for the future. The children were completely overwhelmed by this question," reports Münchnerin. How could anyone have plans for the future in a refugee camp when it is not even certain whether they will have enough to eat the next day? When Jacqueline Flory goes to the camps today and asks the children about their dreams, she gets 1,000 different answers. "For me, that's what our biggest, life-changing success is: these kids believe again that good things can happen."
We have responsibility for these people
Jaqueline Flory, initiator of the tent school, lives her life more consciously today.
Things have also changed for Jacqueline Flory since 2015. "I've become more grateful for every little luxury we have here in Germany," she says. Currently, homeschooling is all the rage in Germany, but there are children in the camps who have never been to school, she says. "We should stop being all about ourselves and keep putting our problems into perspective." The privileged life in Western industrialized countries goes hand in hand with a responsibility to those who have had it less good, he said.
The work of the Tent School continues - and needs support!
The tent schools will probably remain in operation for quite a while, because there is currently no end in sight to the war. This makes the work of the tent school all the more important. Since it is financed exclusively by private donations, many people here are changing the lives of many others. Support can be given in many different ways: with a direct donation, a donation as a gift or a sponsorship. There is also an extensive Onlineshopwhere the products created by the women in the handicraft workshops are available for purchase. Jaqueline Flory wishes that more and more people here will become aware of their responsibility towards the people there. And that there is no reason to resign. Because each of us can do something to improve the lives of other people.