From Z to A student
Myriam is a Syrian refugee, and she joined the Cedar Home family six years ago. Like almost every Syrian refugee, she didn’t measure up to the Lebanese educational standard, and her knowledge of English was almost non-existent.
Deciding to take Myriam in was the easy part — as a disadvantaged refugee child she more than qualified to be in our care. The hard part was getting her up to speed at school. Her first semester as a grade five student was a disaster — as expected. The main goal included more than achieving academically. We wanted her to adapt, as she was Syrian in a school filled with mostly Lebanese students. She did that nicely, even starting to speak the Lebanese dialect, and in no time, no one was able to tell if she was Syrian or Lebanese.
That boosted her self-confidence and opened the door for her to want to achieve more. She studied hard, and worked well with the tutor we got her to make up for the things she couldn’t figure out on her own. In no time, Myriam moved up from last in class to fourth. She even won a national math contest and got a golden medallion.
Myriam’s plan for the future is to become a psychiatrist and help war-traumatized kids and their families.