Three years without a paycheck

Hamoud is a 47-year-old teacher and father of eight children, who has been working in the education sector for 18 years. Some mornings he must make the difficult decision between feeding his children breakfast, paying for transportation to school or walking many hours to get to school. For Hamoud, “teaching is a sacred duty” and he is willing to make sacrifices so that he can teach his students, yet he was forced to look for other jobs in the last three years since he is not receiving his public servant salary anymore. “It is hard to work when you are asking yourself how to feed your own children” he says.

On his way back from school, Hamoud began looking for houses under construction so he can find some part-time work in the afternoon. Since he hasn’t been able to pay his rent regularly, Hamoud had to sell his wife’s jewelry to keep a roof over his children’s heads.

The money he got from selling his wife’s rings lasted some weeks and Hamoud fast ran out of money again and had to sell the gas cylinder his wife was using for cooking in order to buy food for his children

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE provided UNICEF with a USD 70 million contribution towards provide cash assistance to teachers across Yemen, in order to support teachers so that children can still have a chance to education. The cash incentives lessen the burden on teachers like Hamoud by helping to cover their most basic needs. More importantly, the incentives provide hope, raise morale and show that teachers and education is valued.