Student Work Camp

Convened to the Sakiet Work Camp jointly by the Union Generale des Etudiants Tunisiens (UGET) and the Co-ordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students (COSEC) on behalf of the North African Student Confederation and the International Student Conference (ISC), the more than 125 student participants have forsaken their universities for the summer in order to co-operate with Tunisian students in the erection of a concrete symbol of international student solidarity.

The cornerstone which they have laid announces the inauguration of a humanitarian undertaking hitherto unequalled in international student activity. Their efforts, so that after a long absence Tunisian children may return to school in autumn, is meant as an expression of the humanity of students everywhere.

The constant rumble of artillery fire from Algeria, which lies barely 5500 metres from the foundations of the new school, and the glare of searchlights which extinguish the stars by night are constant reminders of the war which caused in February, 1958, the death of 11 children in the bombed school-house. But the new foundations laboriously dug in the sun-scorched earth are not only a condemnation of colonialism and ignorance. They herald the fruition of a project long envisioned and planned together by North African students and the ISC.

The day after the bombing, UGET determined that it would participate in the campaign of the Tunisian nation to rebuild the destroyed village of Sakiet.

True to its commitment, UGET jointly with COSEC is today building independently but in co-operation with the broader Tunisian Government reconstruction project already under way in Sakiet. Having decided to leave the ruined village intact as a national monument, the Government has replanned the new Sakiet nearby as a model of independent Tunisia. In addition to the student volunteers working on the school are hundreds of Tunisian workers rebuilding the rest of the village. The school itself, however, while complementing the modern Tunisian building, will by special architecture and equipment reveal the international character which inspired its construction.

It was at the Eighth International Student Conference in Lima, Peru, that 66 National Unions of Students formally launched the Sakiet Work Camp. Representatives of these National Unions voted unanimously to mandate COSEC to collaborate with the North African Student Confederation for the reconstruction and equipping of the Sakiet school-house.