A School Without Walls

“Knowledge is a great source of power for women.” Ferial Magdy

In just ten minutes Ferial had to make up her mind to leave her home city of Ta’iz as the sound of shells came closer. After ten minutes she was sitting in a car heading to the unknown with no idea of where to go. When she heard that a daughter of a relative of hers outside ​​Ta’iz had died, she decided to pay her a visit to console her.

Her relative was a secondary school teacher. Ferial stayed with her to console her over the loss of her daughter. When school exams approached Ferial decided to help teach the students, who her relative could not teach in this situation. After the exams were over, Ferial decided to do something to help displaced people like herself – students and young people of the village to which she had been destined to come.

She asked a friend to help her to start a voluntary project. During that summer holiday, with the help of her friend as well as local community members, she organised voluntary education activities in a summer youth centre. Volunteers delivered various classes in English and other subjects. She convinced village elders to support the initiative and the opening of a small school to teach 1000 children. The war had stopped education in Ta’iz and caused a bleak vacuum in the lives of young people who decided to volunteer to serve the community. They made a tangible change in their surroundings, and the lives of the children – developing their skills and distracting them from thinking about the war.

Months after she started this work, Ferial noted a rift in society with regionalism emerging strongly between villagers and displaced people from other areas. She felt she had to do something so she created the slogan of ‘coexistence’, taking care to include beneficiaries from all regions in the initiative, and bring them closer.

A few days later, an audience sat down to attend an event organised by Ferial: a silent play. The theme of the play was coexistence and acceptance of others. When the curtain came down, there was a long applause. But the curtain was also drawn on an episode of Ferial’s life: the shells of war and aerial bombardment reached her safe haven that was no longer safe, so she had to move once again, leaving Ta’iz, and fleeing to Sana’a.

In Sana’a, which was calmer than the conflict zones of Ta’iz, Ferial became absorbed in online cultural pages. She resumed her literary passion, remembering the morning poetry reading events that she used to organise as a teacher. The idea of ​​organising a new volunteer activity, arising from her love of culture, reading and literature, appealed to her.

She decided to set up a women’s literary forum to discuss books, present success stories of distinctive women role models, and host female literary figures to present evening and morning poetry and story readings.

The forum, which started as an online virtual activity run by Yemeni girls living in several countries, was turned by Ferial into a real life activity, a salon for women in Sana’a called ‘Salon Noon.’ It’s variety of cultural activities and events, such as the campaign to return to the love of knowledge and the celebration of International Women’s Day and the Colours of Joy.

The monthly activities of the salon included hosting Yemeni women writers and literary figures to talk about their experiences and hold literary and cultural evenings. Salon activities also included discussions of selected books, and other discussion topics and sessions, providing a variety of activities from time to time.

Ferial believes that knowledge, reading and teaching are the lifelines that saved her, and allowed her in turn to save others.