Despite the tragedy in Gaza, a university graduate moves around camps for the displaced persons (DPs) in the besieged enclave, giving informal lessons to children there.
Noor Nassar, the founder of "Schools Without Borders," is determined to provide the children with education.
The 24-year-old is a resident of Rafah. She started her professional life through volunteering in institutions as a community facilitator and child activist.
"I always love thinking in order for my activity to be purposeful, so I thought about how I, 'Noor', could help children. I thought for a long time until the mobile school project came to mind. I started it in March in the city of Rafah, then we were displaced in May. Despite the displacement, I did not give up and dealt with the displacement as the biggest challenge that I faced, despite my fear of failure and isolation," Nassar said.
To make the mobile school project work, Nassar began searching in libraries and market for anything available, managed to get a stand and a board with the help of her family and colleagues, and then turned these preparations into something suitable for transportation.
"The mobile school was initially the one called 'School on the Road'. Now we've adopted a new form and call it 'Schools Without Borders' as a group of mobile schools has been launched. My wish is to be able to achieve my dream of having an integrated youth body that unites us with one goal," she said.
For now, the project has been successfully implemented in the city of Deir al-Balah, al-Zawaida and in al-Nuseirat. Nassar hopes to launch this project in more areas across Gaza, in order to reach the largest number of children.
"I hope to find more support, because this is a purely personal effort, I look forward to being supported by those who like me believe in the importance of education. First and last, the occupier's goal is to spread ignorance and illiteracy among the Palestinian people, so our role as the educated and cultured youth of Gaza is to confront that. School supplies are very expensive and are not available due to the occupation's policy of limiting the import of educational supplies, so we make materials from scratch that help children complete their education," said Nassar.
University graduate offers lessons to Gaza children at DP camps
University graduate offers lessons to Gaza children at DP camps
China's scientific expedition team on Thursday obtained critical ice cores during their investigation of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, which is known as Asia's "water tower".
The region encompasses "one glacier, two lakes and three rivers". It is home to Purog Kangri Glacier, the world's largest glacier in the mid to low-latitude regions, as well as Siling Lake and Namtso Lake, the largest and second-largest lakes in Xizang, respectively. It is also the birthplace of the Yangtze River, Nujiang River and Yarlung Zangbo River.
The climate in the region is complex and changeable, and its ecosystem is very fragile, and meanwhile it is a pivotal area for Xizang's economic and social development.
During their expedition, the team drilled for ice cores at different depths overnight on Thursday, aiming to capture climate records from different time scales.
Ice core drilling is typically conducted during the night and early morning when the ice temperature is sufficiently low.
Ice cores serve as vital records of global climate and environmental changes. The sediments and bubbles within these cores are clues to understanding the history of Earth's climate. By studying the bubbles captured in ice cores, scientists can analyze atmospheric composition, including carbon dioxide levels, over hundreds of thousands of years.
Yao Tandong, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and leader of the expedition, and Lonnie Thompson, a renowned American glacier expert and foreign academician at CAS, conducted their scientific expedition on the glacier Thursday morning.
Through helicopter observations, thickness-measuring radar, satellite image comparison and other methods, the scientific expedition team has found that the surface area of the Purog Kangri Glacier has shrunk by 10 percent over the past 50 years.
The average altitude of Purog Kangri Glacier is 5,748 meters, with the highest point reaching 6,370 meters. Due to global warming, the glacier is melting rapidly.
"So does the melting of glacier surface -- the higher the altitudes, the less the ablation volume, while at lower altitudes, it accumulates and forms branch-like rivers on the ice surface. Currently, these branches extend up to altitudes of 6,000 meters," said Xu Baiqing, a research fellow of the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the CAS.
Research indicates that the accelerated retreat of glaciers on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau over the past 40 years reflects a broader trend, and the melting rate of the Purog Kangri Glacier is relatively slow compared to the overall situation of the plateau.
The temperature changes within the glacier also attributed to the great difficulty of drilling, said Xu.
"Due to climate warming, the temperature within the glacier has risen, which suggests that under the same backdrop of temperature variations, the ablation may show abrupt shift with accelerating growth," said Xu.
The expedition was launched on Aug 18, 2024 and is scheduled to continue until October.
Scientists obtain critical ice cores during expedition in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau
