There are three new stand-alone classrooms in the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, two with “Yale” painted on the sides by Syrian students.

In all, 180 more children and teenagers will get an education because of the efforts of two second-year graduate students at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, working with the nongovernmental organization Relief International.

Stephanie Leutert and Nitsan Shakked were inspired to help in the refugee crisis by the sight of Syrians escaping from the civil war in their country, especially the story of a boy who drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Greece.

“We felt we had to do something; Yale has to do something,” Shakked said during a Skype interview during a visit to Amman, Jordan. “Each of us went back and tried to figure out in our department what we could do.” Shakked is a hydrogeologist who has researched the refugees’ migration from North Africa to Europe.

Read the full article on The Washington Times.