Prison in Shehba converted to academy
After ten years of war in Syria, a prison of the Assad regime in Shehba, formerly notorious as a torture centre, has been converted by the autonomous administration into an academy.
The Ehdas prison in the northern Syrian canton of Shehba has been used for years, first by the Syrian government and later by the ISIS, as a torture centre. After the liberation of the region, the building was renovated by the Education Committee of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and now houses the Viyan Amara Academy.
The Academy, which will open in October 2019, has 90 students and 16 teachers in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and teaching. The students receive a scholarship from the Education Committee. Classes are held in Kurdish, Arabic and English. The subjects of history and geography are taught online. The philosophy of the educational institution includes the paradigm of a democratic nation. Besides the educational program there are also leisure and sports activities.
The students organize themselves into committees on the topics of science, culture, sports, health, media, economy, ecology and research. The majority of them come from Afrin and had to flee to Shehba during the Turkish invasion in spring 2018. One of the students is Berivan Omar. She says: "Education is a prerequisite for a free society. The transformation of the building from a prison to an academy is for us a message to the world."
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