The Rukban camp is located in a remote area near the Syria-Jordan border, where the camp’s residents have been facing a dire humanitarian crisis since 2014. The camp has been completely besieged, leaving the people there with severely limited access to healthcare, education, and other essential services.

To support the education of children in Rukban, the Small School Support Project (SSSP) has taken on the responsibility of providing salaries for teachers and nutritional support for students attending the schools within the camp. Currently, there are 8 schools in Rukban, serving a total of 1400 students.

One of these schools is the Palmyra Neighborhood School (PNS), a school located in Rukban camp, with a number of students that surpasses 160 students, where they can learn all of the school subjects that they no longer have access to due to the siege that was enforced over Rukban camp since 2014 since the Rukban camp doesn’t have any official governmental schools, it was just on the locals of Rukban to establish their own schools and adopt the curriculum that they used to learn in the official Syrian schools.

This schools still needed sponsorship, and this is where SSSP’s role to help comes in, we do support the teachers with a monthly salary to help them continue the educational process, and we secure healthy nutrition for the kids of Palmyra Neighborhood school, we make sure that we have a direct connection with the teachers of this school, and we make sure that we are supervising the educational operation to ensure that the quality of the education that those kids receiving is the best that they can receive under the Rukban’s current situation.

The school faced irregular financial aid and lacked consistent support. However, since May 2023, the SSSP has been sponsoring the monthly fees for all students and providing a monthly salary for the dedicated teachers and guards. This support has ensured the continuity of education and has also allowed for the distribution of nutritional supplements, including fruits, milk, and other essential items.

In July 2023, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Lara Tseng and the SSSP, the Palmyra Neighborhood School underwent a renovation, with a budget of $3500. The school’s infrastructure was improved, with the walls raised, the leaking roof repaired, and colorful paintings added to the walls, creating a more welcoming and stimulating learning environment for the students.

While the basic needs of the Palmyra Neighborhood School have been partially met, there are still areas that require attention. The school is in need of tables, chairs, and essential stationery supplies, such as backpacks, pencils, notebooks, and erasers. To address these needs, the SSSP, in collaboration with Zumba Factory, organized a charity Zumba party on October 22nd, 2023, with all ticket proceeds dedicated to purchasing educational resources for the 133 children at PNS.

In addition to supporting the Palmyra Neighborhood School, the SSSP has also launched initiatives to support other schools within the Rukban camp. In August and September 2023, the SSSP launched the “A Birthday Gift to Yoyo” campaign in partnership with an influencer from Taiwan. This campaign aimed to raise funds for partial salaries for the teachers at Spring Song School, another school within Al-Rukban Camp, which had been operating without any consistent financial support. The campaign successfully raised funds to provide a monthly salary of $15 per teacher, with the goal of gradually increasing it to $50 through sustained attention and future campaigns.