Children living in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp began this school year in brand new classrooms in a school constructed by World Vision.
The school in Goranboy district, 350 km west of capital city Baku had previously been constructed with metal-asbestos classrooms when the camp was established in 1992.
There are 283
children, teachers and parents living in the camp. Many turned out to watch the opening of the school on the 15th September.
"This school has brought smiles to the face of people who
have not had much happiness for the last 14 years living in the IDP camp,' explained Mehdi Bakhshiyev, Project Manager, World Vision Azerbaijan. 'The camp has never hosted such a big crowd of guests,
who are here to celebrate and help people to forget for a short while the stark realities of being a camp resident.'
'I am in the eighth form. Up to now I have taken my lessons in the
classrooms which were very cold in winter and hot in summer. Especially in winter the situation used to grow worst. Many of classmates and myself caught cold and were absent for many days. Now, we are
very happy that those days are left behind. We have a nice school now. Our classrooms are nice, light and large. None of us had classes in such nice classrooms before,' said 15-year-old Elvin, as he
waited excitedly for the school bell to ring and lessons to start.
Elvin suffered a great deal with the war, and the subsequent difficult life in the camp which had left painful scars on
his childhood memories, but the new school has given him hope for a brighter future.
'I want to be a teacher in future. When our teacher told us six month ago that World Vision Azerbaijan
would build a new modern school for us, I prayed to God to make it come true. We have a new school now. Thank you very much,' he said.
The new school constructed with generous funding from
World Vision Korea.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
