by Ronald Ssekandi
ADJUMANI, Uganda, June 9 (Xinhua) -- In a wooden structure in Adjumani district in remote northwestern Uganda, Doreen Dribareo struggles to get the attention of over 100 children crowded in one classroom.
Dribareo is teaching the children the English alphabet. More than half the number of the children are South Sudan refugees.
As the bell rings, indicating that it is break time, the children rush out of the classroom to go and play.
As the children play in the dusty school compound, Dribareo told Xinhua on Thursday that while refugee children put on smiling faces, many are hurting and depressed. Some of the children, when fighting erupted back home, fled to Uganda without their parents. Others witnessed their parents being killed by armed men.
The unaccompanied children, those without parents, have been placed under the care of other families. Cases of children being violent are common, according to Dribareo. Others sulk and do not want to talk to anyone.
"When they came from South Sudan, they were traumatized. They cry a lot, some can seat alone, they refuse to talk to anybody. When we see a child is lonely, we carry him or her," said Dribareo.
Counsellors attribute this to the trauma they faced as a result of the fighting back in South Sudan.
After the 30 minutes break, the bell rings again and the children dash to class.
From the beautiful smiles and energies showed by the children, it indicates that they have got a new lease of life, far from the suffering back home.
"The turn up of children is okay, they are now well versed with us, whenever we move in the settlement, they are happy with us," said Dribareo.
As the bell rings again for the children to go home, Dribareo's worry is the increasing number of South Sudan refugee children crossing into Uganda.
UN figures show that of the more than 900,000 South Sudanese who have crossed into Uganda since fighting broke out in December 2013, 59 percent are children.
These high numbers are putting pressure on the schools' meagre resources in this part of the country.
UN agencies and their partners are helping put up child education centers in the different refugee settlements.
In Bidibidi, the largest refugee settlement in the world, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and partners have completed the construction of three Early Child Development centers. Two others are still under construction. Thirteen schools were selected to receive 2,000 desks.
In Adjumani, over 30 teachers in the Maaji settlement have been trained on psychosocial support and child protection. The main intention for the training was to identify and address psychosocial needs of children.
As these relief efforts continue, the UN relief agencies say they are operating on a thin budget and soon their resources will dry out if there is no increased international assistance.
UNHCR argues that there is an urgent need to scale up construction of classroom blocks, provision of scholastic materials among others to improve the learning environment.
Uganda and the UN from June 22-23 are scheduled to hold an international refugee conference dubbed 'Solidarity Conference'. The meeting that will be attended by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and other leaders aims at raising funds to cater for the increasing number of South Sudanese refugees.
Uganda and the UN argue that they need over eight billion U.S. dollars to cater for the refugees over the next four years.
