“A B C D…” says Hussein Asha, 6 years old reading from the blackboard, and then the rest of the students follow his lead. Hussein Asha is displaced with his mom while he was only 2 years old from his birthplace Tulu village to Meda IDP site. He has three siblings and he is the last child of his family.
“I badly want to send my kids to school as a single mom who is responsible to make sure my kids will have a better life than what they are living now. Thanks to imagine1day all of them are attending school but Hussein is the luckiest in that he is able to be in school at an earlier age. He is a very active relative to his siblings. He tells me what he has learned in school while he is back. He likes going to school a lot that he mentions something about his school in everything he speaks,” says Ayisha Adem, Hussein’s mother.
It is only two weeks since Hussein started attending Accelerated School Readiness (ASR) class but he has almost internalized the alphabet.
Hussein says, “I like the ‘A B C D…’ song the most out of everything we have been learning. My teacher, Hayat let the class clap their hands for me every time I sang it for the students. We also learn how to play puzzles, our teacher tells us interesting animals stories and shows us interesting pictures. I like my teacher and I want to be a good teacher like herself when I grow up,” says Hussein trying to write letters in his exercise book.
Hussein isn’t just good at his education he is also good at easily getting along with his fellow students.
Ayisha says, “Hussein’s elder siblings are not as active as him in making friends for they have still the trauma of displacement. But him, he is very good at it – he has lots of friends and he enjoys playing with them. The school has helped him a lot in making more friends apart from the education. My child is happier than anytime else since he has started attending school.”