Italy gave EUR 1.5 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to help poor Palestine refugee children in the Yarmouk camp in Syria get emergency education.
The conflict caused a lot of damage to the Yarmouk camp, which was once home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees. Even though most of the UNRWA service facilities were badly damaged, 14,000 refugees have returned to the camp and can’t get basic services.
With this grant from the Government of Italy, a UNRWA school that has been badly damaged will be fixed up. At the moment, UNRWA drives students from Yarmouk to a public school in a nearby town. Once it’s fixed up, the school will give the children of the camp access to a quality, fair, and inclusive education.
“I want to thank the Italian Cooperation for the very important money they gave to UNRWA in Syria to fix up the school in Yarmouk. This will allow more than 600 students to go to school in the camp.”
– Amanya Michael-Ebye
“Italy is glad that UNRWA is working to make sure that children in Yarmouk camp can go to school. “Over the years, Italy has helped with education and health programmes for Palestinians and Syrians who are vulnerable and live in the area,” said Massimiliano D’Antuono, who is in charge of foreign affairs at the Italian Embassy in Damascus.
“Given how hard it is to get fuel in the country and how much it costs, we think it would be more efficient and better for the children’s safety to support the light repair and equipping of the school inside the camp instead of paying for the kids to get to schools outside the camp. This project strengthens Italian Cooperation by making it easier to get to school and shortening the distance between schools, said Alessandra Piermattei, Director of AICS for Lebanon and Syria.
Amanya Michael-Ebye, who is in charge of UNRWA in Syria, said, “I want to thank the Italian Cooperation for the very important money they gave to UNRWA in Syria to fix up the school in Yarmouk. This will allow more than 600 students to go to school in the camp.” He also said that since the last school year, the number of students had tripled. Numbers are likely to keep going up as more Palestine refugees return to their homes in Yarmouk because they can’t pay the skyrocketing rent outside the camp.
Since 1954, Italy has been a reliable and committed partner to UNRWA. Even though the COVID-19 had a big effect on Italy’s economy, in 2021 it was the 16th largest donor to UNRWA. This meant that the Agency could continue to help Palestine refugees in Syria with money and protection as part of the UNRWA Syria Regional Crisis Emergency Appeal.