As Iraq currently contends with one of the largest number of IDPs in the world, UNESCO continues to focus its efforts on providing quality secondary education to adolescents and children of IDP communities within Iraq and Kurdistan. Under the framework of the project ‘Providing access to quality education to adolescents and young adults in conflict-affected areas in Iraq’, funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, UNESCO is constructing intermediate and secondary schools for IDPs in Iraq and Kurdistan. 

Below are a few pictures we captured showing the construction process.

Iraq, known as the cradle of civilization, has been undergoing a massive crisis since the onset of the latest conflict in June 2014. In addition to the major humanitarian crisis, several cultural heritage sites in areas of conflict are at high risk, while looting and ultimately the illicit traffic of cultural property has become a growing concern.

In another major initiative to respond to the Syrian refugees' crisis in Iraq and to help provide decent learning opportunities for the thousands of young people in the camps, UNESCO and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) opened the Derek Secondary School: the first secondary school for Syrian refugees in Domiz Camp in Duhok.

In one of its most recent initiatives in the field of non-formal education, UNESCO and UNHCR launched the Education and Life Skills Training Support Programme, a project that aimed to improve the education and livelihood conditions of vulnerable Internally Displaced Persons (IPDs) and Syrian refugees located in the Kurdistan Region, Mosul and Kirkuk.

In another joint initiative to support Syrian refugees in Iraq and improve the general educational scheme for children in camps, UNESCO, UNICEF, and UNHCR launched a new campaign to encourage Syrian children to enroll in schools.