For children and youth

First Impressions of Bam: A UNICEF staff members' story

Girls at Enghalabe Eslami Girls' Primary School watch a cartoon and discuss children's rights.

My first trip to Bam was two years after the earthquake. All I knew about the place was what I had seen on TV and what I had heard from colleagues. But the city was very different from what I had imagined. I expected to see a rebuilt city with proper shops, mosques and houses but what I saw were ruined houses, rubble on the streets and incomplete buildings. Fortunately many new schools have been built and children can study in a safe place.

I had a tight schedule, with four schools to visit each day. My job was to give the students a presentation and make them familiar with the idea of children’s rights and the organization that supports those rights — UNICEF. I had been doing it in Tehran for six months and felt confident I could do the same in Bam.

I was so excited because I am used to working with children and I love it but I had no idea how to communicate with children from different situations, with different lifestyles, thoughts and ideas!

This is what I learned during my time in Bam.

My first experience was at Farhangian Primary School, in Bam. Eighty noisy boys in a computer room meant that nobody could hear me. But among them was 10-year-old AmirReza Sadra. He seemed very bright and he surprised me with the answers he gave to my questions. The others preferred to watch the child rights cartoons rather than get involved in any of the discussions. He was quite small compared to his peers. I thought about how small boys tend to become great men and I hoped it would be the same for him.

Afterwards I felt a little disappointed. I expected more from the children. Maybe I my expectations were too high. I went on to the next school hoping things would improve. The girls in Enghelabe Eslami Primary School were very interested to find out about their rights. They easily shared their feelings and thoughts and some aspects of their lives with me. Most of them complained that their parents discriminated between their sons and daughters. A dark-skinned girl with shining black eyes and a friendly smile admitted to me that she hit her younger sister when she was angry. After our discussion about child abuse, she said she would be kinder and more flexible with her.

Students at the Enghalabe Eslami Boys' Primary School in Bam.

I tried to adapt my language so the children would understand me and feel more comfortable. But more than 100 girls at Hejab Secondary School had nothing to say and asked not one single question. I couldn’t work out if it was because the subject was not interesting for them or if they were still shocked by the earthquake or whether they were simply afraid to say anything in front of their teachers. Later, when I wanted to leave, a girl with long plaited hair came up to me and offered to help me carry my things to the car. She asked me why adults don’t realize that children need more attention and love rather than food and a place to sleep. She had lost her parents and lived in an orphanage. She told me she needed care, respect and attention and wanted to be seen. She made a deep impression on me.

After Shahed Primary School, where the children had some very interesting things to say and were more lively than the other girls in Bam, I went on to Nejatollahi Boys Primary School, which was the best experience I had. They students were very noisy at first, but their unique ideas and thoughts helped me to conduct a session full of energy. Other students seemed to find it interesting too, as they came over to the window to watch the cartoons and listen to our discussions afterwards.

Some of the students I met were from Afghanistan. There were also children from other provinces who had moved to Bam with their families after the earthquake. I talked to one girl who was from Sistan and Balouchestan. She told me her parents didn’t want her to let her go to secondary school even though she had easy access to school compared to where they came from. She said she was determined to resist her parents’ decision because she loved studying.

My biggest challenge was with the children in the village of Poshrood. The school was still housed in prefab buildings and the conditions were poor compared to the other schools I had visited. I found it extremely difficult to communicate with these boys. In spite of my efforts to attract their attention they just wanted to leave and play football.

Overall, I really enjoyed my visit to Bam. I think the children there are more familiar with UNICEF than the children in Tehran because for two years they have seen UNICEF everywhere. Unfortunately they don’t know about their rights, and some of them don’t seem to care. I would be so happy if, among the hundreds of children I met, I could have made an impression that could change their lives or at least make them think differently about their lives.

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