Best Self Magazine

The Lost Generation: How Education Became My Safe Haven

Photograph of Noor looking out of the city of Mosul Syria after ISIS bombing.
The author looking out over the city of Mosul, Iraq, after ISIS bombing. Photograph courtesy of Noor Ghazi.

For refugees and others living in war-torn countries, education is both the hope and the potential for a brighter, safer tomorrow.

Over our morning coffee and newspaper, we read about how millions of children around the world — and even in our own backyards — suffer from poverty, lack of basic human needs, abuse and many other hardships and circumstances. We feel sad, terribly sad, change the subject, sip on the coffee again and move on. But for those who lived those feelings, experienced them in every minute of their lives, it becomes harder to change the subject. 

Have you ever thought of choosing a survival method when you were a child to help you get through the feeling of poverty and war?

Have you wondered how many others may have found the same method to survive the unusual environments that forced them to lose the sense of a happy and healthy childhood? 

Well, I did. 

When you grow up with parents and family who are always busy thinking of how to provide their children with food to eat, clothes to wear, and most importantly, a

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