Cooperation in action Education programme promoting school enrolment and leisure activities

More than half of the Syrian refugees in Turkey are children and young people. Some 37 per cent of these youngsters have no opportunity to attend regular school classes. This means they are deprived of the opportunity to return to a normal daily routine and develop new hope for the future.

Teacher and students in the UNICEF school in Adana

That is why the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is financing an education programme being implemented by GIZ, which is supporting state schools and local youth and community centres in the border provinces of Gaziantep, Hatay, Kilis and Sanliurfa as well as in the cities of Ankara and Istanbul.

Lessons at the schools concerned are held in two shifts: in the mornings, Turkish children attend school and, in the afternoons, Syrian children. The support these schools are receiving is in the shape of a “full package”. This package includes extension and refurbishment work on the buildings; advanced training courses and expense allowances for teachers; textbooks and teaching materials; and transport services for the schoolchildren.

Cultural exchanges

In order to encourage mutual trust and peaceful co-existence between the local Turkish population and the Syrian refugees, support is being provided for activities which foster a spirit of community. For example, young people from both the Turkish and the Syrian communities are being trained by local and international social workers to act as disseminators in their communities. They are being taught how to organise social, cultural and sporting activities for Syrian and Turkish children and young people, and how to take an active role in community life.

Important partners in these activities, besides the local councils, have been the German Olympic Sports Confederation, the Goethe Institute and the Turkish non-governmental organisation Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (SGDD-ASAM).

With these activities the BMZ has offered support to more than 189,100 refugees, internally displaced persons and people in host communities.

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