Salah Hamid Yahya is 27 years old today. In October 2011, he started to attend RET’s Grade 8 course leading to an accredited exam and opening him to both new studies and life perspectives. The bright future he strives for today contrasts radically with his situation back in 2004. “The Darfur war compelled my family and me to flee from our home city El Djenena and forced me to leave my education behind,” he explains. Following the flow of population across the Sudanese border into Chad, Salah Amid reached the camp of Farchana in Eastern Chad, where Sudanese refugees received assistance.

In an attempt to obtain a new lease on life, Salah Hamid returned to primary school in Farchana for three years to continue with his learning and to improve his numeracy and literacy skills. During this time, he worked as a Kindergarten teacher within the Farchana camp. His motivation was less the professional experience itself that he could gain through this activity, but the opportunity that it provided him to educate pupils from an early age. “The role I had been given to help these children to grow up and to blossom found confirmed my vision that the only way of a community in need to pull through is solidarity and mutual respect among its members,” argues the committed student.

His last years at school provided him with new tools to understand his surrounding world and to sharpen the vision he has of the life’s opportunities resulting from education: “I feel confident that a school system open to everyone can help us leave behind the spiral of war by conveying values of respect and esteem.”

As if he had strategically planned ahead the function and responsibility of each member of the Darfurian community, Salah Amid shares his personal ambition. “To complement my community’s effort of reconstruction, I wish to become a doctor,” comments an eager voice.