In March, 2011, the Syrian war engulfed the country and its people in chaos. Terrorized by constant bombings from multiple powers, Syria increasingly became an unlivable and unsafe place. Ultimately, many of its people were forced to make the hard decision to leave and secure for themselves and their families a safe and better future. At the northern border of the country, millions of refugees crossed into Turkey, where around 3.5 million refugees live today. This massive demographic change has had an incredible impact on Turkish society, particularly in border cities, such as Gaziantep, where we have decided to open our second school. This is the first international school for minor refugees in the world. For the home of our school, we have chosen a bright and welcoming building in the neighborhood of Binevler, located in the middle of the city, and in close proximity to the poorest areas in which many of our students live. At the school we are providing 7 years of a rigorous education and awarding students a prestigious and internationally recognized diploma. Our diploma provides a brighter future to our students. Our school aims to re-establish the psychological and social stability that every child deserves. Here in Gaziantep, we are educating tomorrow’s leaders and teaching them to be responsible members of their local and global communities.

Kenya, considered a safe haven in a largely volatile region, has been a destination and place of long-term transit for refugees for decades. In response to the current crises displacing people in the area, small refugee camps, often likened to slums, have emerged near the northeastern border of the country. Without adequate services and proper spaces to live, children here suffer greatly and have little opportunity to learn and grow. Men, women, and children have essentially been sentenced to live in these makeshift camps, trapped and deprived of their human rights. In this area, we will open a Youth Center for 6 months, in order to meet the prospective students for the first International School for refugee children in Africa. We wish to provide refugee children the possibility of securing a brighter and better future for themselves and to encourage them to reject surrendering to the inequity and misery that surrounds them. We want to support them to rekindle their hopes and dreams, and to teach them the values and skills they will need to live in dignity and fight for a more fair and equal world.

Thousands of migrants and refugees from Central and South America, many of them children, are fleeing for their lives to Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico, the future location of Still I Rise in the Americas. Across the northern Mexican border, children have been detained in cages by the United States. We believe that each and every migrant and refugee has the right to be treated with dignity and humanity. The crisis in Mexico has caught global attention. Due to the largely concealed political and humanitarian crises in Central and South America and the rightward shift of politics in the region, slum-like settlements, riddled with danger and organized crime, have appeared along Mexico’s northern border. The children living in these overcrowded spaces urgently need protection and support. Still I Rise intends to offer them the high quality education that they have been denied for years, without having to illegally cross the border into the United States.

After establishing our international schools in multiple locations around the world, we want to change the condition and perception of refugees in Italy. Since the beginning of the crisis, Italy, the nation at the core of the central Mediterranean route, has addressed international protection with a welfare approach and without a realistic long-term plan. After years of managing migration into the country, we believe that the people of Italy deserve support. The best solutions are those that produce long-term benefits and we believe that our international school model, with the mission to rehabilitate and integrate suffering refugee children, is a lucrative investment for the collective well being of Italians. In Italy there are many existing projects refugee inclusion at their core; however, we believe our project model is a necessary step towards actual realization of full rehabilitation and integration. We want to welcome refugee families that have decided to remain in Italy, instead of going to Northern Europe, and to provide their children tangible opportunities to excel academically and professionally. We will start opening a Youth Center for 6 momths, in order to meet our prospective students. Then, we will open the first international school for refugee children in Italy and to less fortunate Italian children as well. Our task will be difficult, but when we achieve our goal, we will create a brighter future for both refugee children and our society as a whole.