Before arriving in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2017, Zaman had never step foot in a school.
“My family lived in a rural area,” says Zaman. “I grew up working in the field and when the conflict intensified, my parents insisted that I, at least, should try make it out.”
Having found safety in Serbia, Zaman, who is 13 years old, is finally able to learn alongside 22 other unaccompanied refugee boys from Afghanistan and Iraq.
In today’s geography class, the pupils are gazing at a diagram of planet Earth. Not a sound is heard except for the voice of the teacher. Next to her, an interpreter repeats her words in Dari (or Persian) and Zaman enthusiastically takes notes.
“This is the first time in my life that I see the seas and the continents,” he says.“It is so interesting. I don’t miss a day in school, even when I am ill. I want to study and go back home one day to help improve things for all the children there.”
After spending eight months alone in an asylum center in Belgrade, Zaman has become the most diligent student in his group. In the short time he has been attending school, he has learned to write the Cyrillic alphabet – the first one he has ever known.
“I have made many friends and being with them helps me forget that I am so far from home and my parents,” he says.
Zaman has become inseparable with Luka, a Serbian boy he met on the second day of school.
“When I saw Zaman in school that morning, he looked very sad,” says Luka. “We were just starting a game of football but I realized he did not know the rules. So I told him to just pass me the ball when he got it. And then he asked me to help him with his homework. I never used to do my homework but now I am also a good student”.
Zaman’s teachers, too, are overwhelmingly positive about his progress.
Considering that many of them never attended school before, they are incredibly well-behaved and eager to acquire new knowledge,” says Darko Stanojkovic, the mathematics teacher.
“We are happy to be able to teach them and help them forget, at least temporarily, the horrors they’ve lived through before coming to Serbia.”
Backed by Serbia’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development, the school Zaman and Luka attend is one of the 44 primary and secondary public schools that enrolled 437 refugee, asylum seeker and migrant children in 2017.
By September, Serbia had become the first country in the Western Balkans to enrol over 90 per cent of all refugee, migrant and asylum-seeking children.
“UNHCR has been in close contact with most of the schools and has been supporting transport of refugee children to and from schools, as well as taking part in various school events involving refugee children and their Serbian friends” says Hans Friedrich Schodder, UNHCR Representative in Serbia. “It is very heartening to see them study and play together.”
At last, Zaman can look forward to the future.
“I would like to go back home one day when the war is over,” he says. “In the meantime, I will study to become a doctor and learn how to help people back home.”
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