Contact: David Dillard, Servant Group International, 615-832-2282

NASHVILLE, Aug. 25, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- Over two million people have been displaced in Iraq since ISIS violence escalated in 2014. Over half a million of those are school children, 70% of whom remain out of school. Most have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan, where a former pastor opened Shivani Medes School for refugee children outside of Duhok, Iraq.

The school, which recently won World Magazine's International Hope Award, is staffed and sponsored by Servant Group International, a ministry based in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the first school to be built for Yazidi refugees who live in the camp.

Yazidis are a small religious group targeted by ISIS for annihilation.

"[ISIS] is the enemy of education," said the assistant manager of the refugee camp. "It's very important to plant a school while ISIS is attacking us."

Shivani Medes School opened with 350 students in March 2015. It now has over 1,000 children in attendance.

It is the most recent in a series of schools that Servant Group has helped start in Northern Iraq. Three additional schools with over 3,000 Muslim students enrolled are growing rapidly. When asked about the difficulty of starting schools Iraq, SGI director Dave Dillard said, "Helping establish these schools in Northern Iraq was difficult, but finding people with the heart and courage to go serve as teachers has been the real challenge."

To learn more about the ongoing work at these schools visit www.servantgroup.org.