Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Pro­tec­tion Of­fi­cer at the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR), Aman­da Solano Badil­la, has thanked the Gov­ern­ment for al­low­ing reg­is­tered Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren in­to schools.

“I want to ex­press UN­HCR’s heart­felt grat­i­tude to the gov­ern­ment for its de­ci­sion to open the coun­try’s school doors to these chil­dren,” she said yes­ter­day.

“And while to­day we have just a small per­cent­age of chil­dren reg­is­tered with the gov­ern­ment through the mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion frame­work...we know that for more chil­dren to ac­cess schools it’s re­quired a con­struc­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion and we as­sure the gov­ern­ment that we will con­tin­ue to sup­port this ini­tia­tive,” Solano Badil­la added.

The UN­HCR rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the agency will sup­port the Gov­ern­ment in es­tab­lish­ing a na­tion­al asy­lum sys­tem that will give in­ter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion to those who qual­i­fy.

At an ed­u­ca­tion kit dis­tri­b­u­tion host­ed by UN­HCR at the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS)in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, 17 of the 23 Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren who will be­gin school on Mon­day re­ceived ed­u­ca­tion kits. They were giv­en book bags filled with sta­tionery, school uni­forms and shoes. Sev­en lo­cal chil­dren al­so re­ceived kits.

Solano Badil­la said the UN­HCR wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sist the first co­hort of non-na­tion­al chil­dren en­ter­ing lo­cal schools, as they have had their ed­u­ca­tion in­ter­rupt­ed for many months and in some in­stances for years.

“This event marks a cru­cial step to­ward pro­vid­ing equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for all chil­dren. On av­er­age UN­HCR es­ti­mates that glob­al­ly refugees miss out on three to four years of school due to forced dis­place­ment,” she said.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador to T&T Can­dace Bond said dur­ing her tenure at the Los An­ge­les Coun­ty Of­fice of Ed­u­ca­tion, she saw what hap­pened when chil­dren do not have the re­sources to suc­ceed in class.

“What hap­pens, is you can have a change, when you give them what they need to be suc­cess­ful,” she said.

Bond said the Unit­ed States was thrilled to part­ner with the Gov­ern­ment, the Ed­u­ca­tion Work­ing Group and UN­HCR in en­sur­ing Venezue­lan mi­grant stu­dents are suc­cess­ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to the pub­lic school sys­tem.

“To­day’s do­na­tion is yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple of our joint ef­forts to sup­port the ed­u­ca­tion­al as­pi­ra­tions of stu­dents across this coun­try, no mat­ter where they call home,” she said.

San­ti­a­go Gon­za­les, who will start in Stan­dard Five at the Savonet­ta Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School on Mon­day, said he could not wait, adding he was ea­ger to study Maths.

“I am very hap­py and ex­cit­ed,” he said.

Be­tween May 31 and June 14, 2019, more than 15,000 Venezue­lan mi­grants were reg­is­tered to live and work in this coun­try. Many brought their chil­dren.

The gov­ern­ment’s first of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment on school for mi­grant chil­dren was last year when Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly an­nounced that over 100 chil­dren of reg­is­tered Venezue­lan mi­grants will be ad­mit­ted in­to pub­lic schools. That did not hap­pen.

On Au­gust 19, the Min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Ed­u­ca­tion said 23 of 111 Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren were suc­cess­ful with their ap­pli­ca­tions to at­tend a lo­cal school. A day lat­er, Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment (CEBM) CEO Sharon Man­groo said 32 more ap­pli­ca­tions had been sent and should be ap­proved in weeks.