Education Kits and Our Activity Booklet

 

There are nearly 2 million displaced Syrian children struggling with life away from their homes. About three quarters of these kids don't go to school full time - if at all. Studio Syria wants to help these children to remember the joys of learning so we have begun distributing education kits after we teach workshops. The kits contain pencils, paper, pencil sharpeners, notebooks and colored pencils. Recently we have added our specially designed activity booklets which contain coloring pages, alphabet and reading lessons, basic math problems and a specially written and illustrated story complete with creative writing prompts. 

Laurie and Ghadeer stuff education kits at a medical clinic in Salt, Jordan.

Jean distributes Studio Syria education kits to Jordanian kids too since it is increasingly important to assist host communities who are straining under the influx of refugees. These kids live in the Ghor al Safi.

Seattle based children's book author Anna Witte wrote and illustrated a story specially for our booklet. The adventurous tale of children's empowerment ends with a message of hope - and some creative writing prompts. Studio Syria is grateful to volunteers like Dave and Anna - and to Kutaieba Alsamman who translated the whole booklet into Arabic - a huge contribution.

Small distributions like this one in Zaatari Village work best so that we can make sure each child gets a kit and no one feels left out.

Seattle based artist Chris Rollins sent us original drawings that we turned into writing prompts urging the children to imagine and write about strange and friendly creatures.

Studio Syria partnered with IRD to develop appropriate materials including this map of Zaatari Camp illustrated by New York based David Badders who shows the four schools in the camp with pencil icons. The message tells children how to register for school and the map is surrounded by math questions encouraging counting and critical thinking. Only the booklets distributed inside Zaatari contain this map.

Studio Syria has already distributed 500 education kits and will continue to make as many as we can afford. Each kit costs $3.50. We gratefully accept donations on our web page www.studiosyria.org