At present there are over half a million refugees living in Guinea. Most are living in camps in various parts of the country but many have found their way to Conakry, the capital, where they live in temporary or makeshift accommodation while they try to rebuild their lives. Many of these are school-age children or young adults whose education was interrupted as they fled from the violence and disorder in their home countries.
The Conakry Refugee School was founded in 1993 by parents who initially covered the costs of running the school themselves. As time went on costs became higher than income, presenting the School with insurmountable problems. This resulted in help being sought from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) who, in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), took over the School in 1995. In 1995 the UNHCR secured a piece of land and a school was constructed with students and parents providing the labour force.
With this development the school was freed from having to charge tuition fees and many more children were able to attend school. However this situation was short-lived; in 2000, following further rebel uprisings, and perhaps fearful of becoming a haven for yet more refugees, the Guinean government put irresistible pressure on the IRC to withdraw all support for the School, forcing it to close.
Subsequently, teachers and parents managed to re-open the School on a self-supported basis, renting classrooms in the afternoon from a mainstream Guinean school. To help pay the rent, a stipend for the teachers and to buy instructional materials the pupils were asked to pay a fee of £1 per month each. From then on enrolment dropped, from 1000 to 380 in 2003 as many parents and guardians could not afford to pay even that meagre amount.
The School was now in a constant state of financial crisis, often unable to acquire basic educational materials to support its curriculum. Teachers were desperately underpaid, sometimes receiving no pay from one month to the next, and therefore struggled to maintain their commitment. The administration organised occasional social events and bob –a-job activities to augment the School’s income but it was never sufficient, and the Director’s ceaseless efforts to secure financial aid from national and international organisations were unsuccessful.
