Local families need a helping hand too
“I want to become something.”
14-year-old Abdul Rahman is slight and shy, but his words are big. Sitting on the floor of his house in Bnaslawa, a village-turned-suburb in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, he has dreams of going to university.
He wants to become an Arabic teacher, but he pulls out his social studies textbook and reads a short lesson about Mesopotamian civilization. Eager to get in on the action, 10-year-old Asma grabs her Kurdish language textbook and shows off her favorite poem about a grain of wheat. Her copybook is full of tidy lines of neat handwriting.
Abdul Rahman is the third of five children — his oldest sister Aisha, who is 18, finished primary school and then dropped out to take care of his next oldest sister, Somaya, who is 16. Somaya is severely disabled. A sixteen-year-old in the body of a two year old, she cannot move or speak. She requires constant care, which takes up significant amounts of the family’s meager resources. There is not enough money for her to get regular medical attention.
And so Abdul Rahman and his younger siblings Ahmad and Asma represent the hope of the household both to do well in school and to be extra hands to bring in an income.
The family is struggling to make ends meet. Abdul Rahman’s father, Hamed, is a day laborer from Koya — a small town about 2 hours east of Erbil — who quit school after the fourth grade, when he was around 10 years old. Despite being from the area and having family nearby, they were forced to move from the center of Erbil because the rent was too high. A local shop helps them by providing basic staples like cooking oil and rice for free.
Neither Hamed nor his wife are literate, and while they want their children educated, that may not be a practical possibility. “I’m of two minds,” says Hamed. “I want my children to go to school so they don’t end up like me. The boys can’t do the kind of physical labor I do. On the other hand, we need the money. So at some point it may make more sense for them to start working.”
UNICEF is working with the Government of Germany to provide subsidies to this family and 1,488 others in Erbil to enable families to keep their children in school.
Families from the refugee, displaced and host communities are eligible for cash assistance, which amounts to 35,000 Iraqi dinar per child per month, for up to four children in a family. The money does not have to be spent exclusively on school — it can also be used to help families alleviate needs that would keep children from attending school. This could include helping to pay rent, buying food and clothes, and in this family’s case, getting medical care for Somaya.
Hamed is receiving assistance for his three youngest children who are all in school. When the cash subsidy program began last year, UNICEF’s partner NGO at the time conducted assessments of Syrian families in the neighborhood. They mentioned that Hamed’s family also needed assistance, so they were assessed and included in the program.
Hamed received a SIM card from the Zain, one of the largest telecommunications companies in Iraq. The company activated a “wallet” feature imbedded in the SIM card where UNICEF’s cash assistance is transferred. Hamed can then visit a Zain branch anywhere in Erbil to take the cash out.
It’s a move away from previous methods of handing over cash at a predetermined time and place, and gives people more flexibility as to the amount of cash they take out, when and where while also allowing UNICEF and partners to monitor and evaluate the progam. It also helps the family not to be exposed at the time the support is cashed out, which in turn helps keep the whole process more confidential and respects the family’s dignity and security.
The money has been a lifeline for this family of seven. For now, the younger kids are in school, not at work. Somaya has at least some medical care. Hamed does not want to think about what would happen if the program ends — the cash assistance is a lifeline.
“My kids are good at school.” Hamed says. “We use the money for their stationery as well as for the bus fare to take them to school. But we also use it to get medicine and care for Somaya. If we had a bit more we could fix the roof. It leaked a lot during the winter, and the house was wet all the time. But if we weren’t in this program…things would be really hard.”
Jennifer Sparks is a Communications Consultant with UNICEF Iraq.
