THEY WALK FOR HOURS
Students at the Jahaleen primary school are a special lot. They are extremely dedicated and will walk for hours across tough desert ground just to get to school. Lucky ones travel to school by donkey.
The Jahaleen primary school is a Bedouin school that is tucked away in a harsh corner of the Judaean desert, just outside Jerusalem. The Bedouin children who study there come from a very poor West Bank community. The Bedouin are people who live mostly in the deserts of the Middle East.
In the community, homes are made of tin shacks and there is no running water or electricity. There are no proper roads that children can travel on to get to school, but they still make the journey everyday because they know that with an education, they can have a better future.
11-year-old Intisar Abdallah Kushan lives 10 kilometres away and says that getting to school takes a major effort:
"I wake up at 4:30 am and leave my house half an hour later so I can get to school at 7:30 or 8:00. We walk for more than three hours and sometimes we arrive after the first period and sometimes even after the second. Sometimes we are soaked by the rain and covered in mud. Sometimes we have to skip school because it's just too difficult to scramble over the mountains to get there."
Even the headmaster has been touched by the dedication of his students. He says:
"When I first arrived at this school 10 years ago, I came on foot and immediately asked to be transferred elsewhere. But when I started working, I saw the suffering of these children in summer and winter, I saw how many hours they walk to get here, and I started to really sympathise with their love for education ... we are inspired when we see these students who put up with everything."
How about you?
1. Do you like going to school?
2. What keeps you motivated enough to go to school everyday?
3. What is the most important thing you have learnt during your schooling years?
