Syrian Muslim refugees graduate from Catholic school in Jordan

At the Latin Catholic Patriarchate School of Naour in Jordan, exuberant Syrian refugee children, overwhemlingly Muslim, sang, danced and played with colorful clowns as they celebrated graduation in this sleepy suburb of the Jordanian capital, Amman.



Syrian refugee boys line up to perform folk dances during a graduation ceremony at the Latin Patriarchate School in Naour, Jordan, July 11. (CNS photo/Dale Gavlak)

Dale Gavlak
July 17, 2016
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

NAOUR, Jordan - Exuberant Syrian refugee children sang, danced and played with colorful clowns as they celebrated graduation at their Caritas-sponsored school in this sleepy suburb of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Some 170 Muslim children, ages 5-17, proudly strode up on the outdoor platform of the Latin Patriarchate School of Naour, festooned for the occasion with red, yellow and orange balloons. They wore big smiles as they collected their certificates allowing them to move from primary to secondary school, while others completed high school.

The graduation march, “Pomp and Circumstance,” played in the background as Father Rifat Bader called out the students’ names and congratulated each one: Abdel Fattah Hisham al-Auda, Omar Karim Mohamed, Leen Nizar Laham ….

The graduation came at a time when many Syrian children are deprived of receiving an education. UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, estimates that more than 2.1 million children inside Syria and 700,000 in neighboring countries are out of school.

https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/07/17/syrian-muslim-refugees-graduate-catholic-school-jordan/