Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children have been severely impacted by the chaos that has become part of their daily lives.  They have witnessed or experienced extreme violence and targeted threats, lost people they love, become uprooted from their homes and in some cases, missed years of schooling.
 
IRC Iraqi Children's Education Initiative
 
IRC teams are working in Iraq, Jordan and Syria to ensure Iraq's youngest victims have safe access to quality education services they deserve and meaningful routine in their difficult lives.
The projects aim to increase access to learning programs for boys and girls of all ages, improve the quality of services, include vulnerable children from overwhelmed host communities and boost local capacity to provide innovative education programs.

Iraq
Large numbers of school-aged children are internally displaced in Iraq causing severe congestion in schools struggling to accommodate them.  The IRC education program in Iraq aims to improve and build infrastructure at 30 schools to address the problem and distribute new teaching and learning materials. Near the Northern Iraqi city of Erbil, the IRC completed construction of six new classrooms at a school that quadrupled in size as a result of displaced children moving to the area.  The IRC is also making repairs and improvements to three schools in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad and is currently looking at similar projects at eight other schools in the area that are hosting displaced students.  The IRC is also preparing to develop remedial education at schools to ease the re-entry of out-of-school youth and drop-outs.
 
Jordan
Jordan's schools opened their doors to Iraqi refugee children last year, but tens of thousands are not attending classes.  For some it's financial and transportation constraints, others fear their illegal status prevents them from moving about safely and freely. These children are most often trapped in the small crowded apartments where they live or engaged in illegal labour in their neighbourhoods.   Most have no recreational places to go to.
The IRC is working with the organization Questscope and local partners to provide learning, healing, life skills and recreational programs in welcoming and nurturing spaces for young Iraqi refugees and marginalized Jordanian children in the cities of Amman, Irbid and Zarqa.  The IRC is also developing a new program that would help "hidden" Iraqi and Jordanian children and youth by providing additional home and community-based learning opportunities.
 
Syria
Syria is currently hosting an estimated one million Iraqi refugees and is struggling to cope with the increased demand on social services, such as education. Syrian schools are ill-equipped to absorb the influx.  Among the challenges, classes are over-crowded and school health standards are no longer being met. The IRC has dispatched an education specialist to work with the United Nations High Commissioner or Refugees (UNHCR), the Syrian Ministry of Education, and other partners to help Syrian schools to accommodate and assist the Iraqi children.  The IRC is also hoping to expand programs in Syria to include class construction, student transportation, supplies of teaching and learning materials and teacher training.