In a corner of the courtyard of a public school in Sanaa, a woman dressed in black stands, once used to seeing her son in the morning assembly line. Today, she returns to the same place not as a mother, but as a cleaner trying to keep what remains of her life intact. She wipes the ground in heavy silence, as if whispering to the courtyard gravel: I had a son here. He left a child and came back a corpse.
She sees her son’s face in the student lines, hearing chants and slogans that were once unfamiliar. Quietly, she realizes many of them may follow the same path, but she says nothing. Two years ago, Umm Amer lost her only son. He was 17. He was returned to her a lifeless body, his image raised atop a coffin. They told her: “Ululate, he has attained martyrdom.”
She recalls how he began to change gradually after joining that summer camp. He became quieter, sometimes sharper, shouting and repeating phrases she had never known, about “jihad” and “victory,” as if they were his only path. She did not understand what was happening, but she saw in his eyes a look that was carrying him away from her.
Today, she does nothing but wipe her tears in secret and continue cleaning, in a job she obtained as the “mother of a martyr,” to support her three daughters after losing the family’s provider.
From Summer Activity to Mobilization Apparatus
The Houthi summer centers did not emerge with the group’s takeover of Sanaa in 2014. They are an extension of a historical trajectory tied to the group’s origins. Their beginnings date back to the early 1990s, specifically 1991, when activities were organized under what was known as the “Believing Youth” in Saada. These included youth programs and seasonal courses aimed at transmitting ideological messaging through study circles and summer camps, serving as early tools to build a social and organizational base by combining education with ideological formation.
With the outbreak of the Saada wars in 2004, these activities underwent a qualitative shift. They were no longer limited to religious or educational aspects but became tools of mobilization and recruitment, benefiting from public sympathy during the conflict and expanding their reach among youth.
By 2008, the group began spreading these activities beyond Saada using nontraditional means, including distributing digital materials on SD cards and USB drives. These contained Houthi doctrinal lectures and lessons tied to the summer centers, as well as what is known as the “Malazim” - Houthi doctrinal lectures delivered by the group’s founder, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, transcribed into booklets.
A supervisor in Sanaa said he received such memory devices in 2008, distributed among selected students. Upon reviewing their contents, he found recordings and Houthi doctrinal lectures by Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, noting that these materials marked a turning point in his adoption of the group’s ideas and support for it.
He attended closed gatherings to listen to these Houthi doctrinal lectures in private meeting spaces with individuals close to the group in Sanaa and nearby areas such as Bani Hushaysh, Khawlan, and Sanhan.
Following the developments of 2011, particularly the February protests and sit-ins and the broader moment of political opening, these activities expanded to a number of provinces. More organized centers and courses appeared outside the group’s main stronghold, with clearer administrative oversight under the appealing slogan “regime change.” They moved beyond narrow circles to fill libraries and kiosks with the Malazim, establishing stalls in multiple locations to distribute booklets, posters, and slogans free of charge, and installing loudspeakers to continuously broadcast chants.
The most significant transformation came after the takeover of Sanaa in 2014, when summer centers shifted from limited activities into a wide-ranging program formally administered through state institutions, within an organizational structure that includes central, technical, and supervisory committees, with the involvement of multiple ministries.
A security source said the group had, in earlier stages, relied on what it called “cultural courses” and religious seminaries to attract youth, gain their sympathy, and integrate them into its project before the current model of summer centers emerged. The source added that these centers “are no longer limited, but have become an institutional program managed within an integrated organizational structure,” noting that they are used as a tool to influence youth orientations, ultimately pushing some toward the front lines.
Types of Summer Camps
According to available information, the group divides these centers or camps into three types: closed, model, and open. Closed camps function as ideological military courses. They are held in military barracks and focus primarily on preparing participants to become fighters within the group. They are trained both militarily and ideologically for this purpose and are considered reserve forces. Once enrolled, their phones are confiscated, contact with their families is cut off, and they are transported at night between training camps that change periodically.
All participants are high school students who have completed weapons dismantling training in schools. Their trainers nominate them for military courses as a reward for excellence and distinction, in addition to some members of school scout groups whose activities have been shifted from scouting to military.
In these camps, participants are trained to use light and medium weapons, RPGs, mortars, grenades, and camouflage and concealment techniques.
Model camps, typically for those over the age of 10, are considered “specialized camps.” Top-performing students in various school activities are recruited to them. These are closed camps where students remain throughout the week, but they are allowed to communicate with their families and their phones are not confiscated. They may return home weekly or every two weeks.
These camps are usually held in provincial capitals, where students receive intensive ideological lectures from senior group leaders, watch films on “jihad,” and study the biographies of the group’s leaders, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. They also receive limited training in dismantling and using certain types of weapons.
Open camps are for children aged 5 to 10. They begin in the morning and end at noon, appearing to the public as Quran memorization centers and summer activities. As a result, the group spreads them across schools and mosques to make them widely accessible. However, children in these camps are taught the “pledge of allegiance,” to chant the Houthi slogan (al-sarkha), and to obey the group’s leader.
Girls are not excluded. There are dedicated centers for females, managed by the General Women’s Cultural Authority, which designs and implements programs, recruits students through field networks, supervises female staff, and prepares unified guidance materials.
These centers are presented as educational and recreational spaces, but they also include intensive religious programs, mobilization-oriented lectures, and group activities that reinforce discipline and belonging.
Embedding a “Conspiracy Theory” Narrative
In its messaging, the group promotes the idea that the summer centers are a fortress against “conspiracies” targeting religion and the nation. They are presented as a means of instilling what it calls “Quranic culture” in younger generations and building a generation armed with knowledge and awareness.
The group also emphasizes that the “battle with the enemy” is not limited to the military dimension but extends to “targeting awareness.” These centers are framed as a safeguard against what is described as “soft war” and “cultural invasion,” and as part of a long intellectual struggle aimed at preparing a generation capable of confrontation.
Alongside this messaging, educational sources indicate that organizers rely on a set of material and moral incentives, such as providing meals, basic supplies, organizing trips, and offering activities, to attract as many students as possible each year.
According to one of the Malazim, a Houthi doctrinal lecture by founder Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi titled “Lessons in Knowing God,” delivered at the Believing Youth forum in Saada, the overarching objective is to “develop students’ knowledge of God and entrench doctrine within their souls and consciences, in a way that propels them toward fighting and confronting enemies.”
Lessons Outside the Official Curriculum
In this year’s season, which began on March 28, the group distributed its own curricula for the summer centers, printed in high quality with a distinct visual identity. This reflects the scale of resources allocated to these programs compared to formal education, which continues to suffer from declining support and capacity.
Students are often forced to purchase their official textbooks from the black market, while teachers struggle to obtain their salaries. Each year, as preparations for the summer centers begin, the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, delivers an annual speech calling for enrollment, a call that has itself evolved significantly over time.
These materials carry no reference to the Republic of Yemen or the Ministry of Education. Instead, they are issued under the title “The Quranic March – General Administration of Summer Courses.”
This extends to the naming of the centers, which are not attributed to the schools hosting them but are instead given symbolic names such as “Al-Hadi,” “Al-Hussein,” “Fatima,” “Martyr Taha al-Madani,” and “Martyr Saleh al-Sammad.”
Administrative Structure with a Ministerial Character
The administrative structure of the summer courses and activities in areas under Houthi control reflects a multi-level system, led by the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports, alongside the General Mobilization Authority, which plays a central role in mobilization and guidance, and the Ministry of Endowments, responsible for religious content.
At the executive and technical levels, local authorities in Houthi-controlled provinces oversee field implementation and coordinate activities within districts and centers through education offices and supervisory committees. Daily activities are managed, staff are assigned, and program implementation is monitored, reflecting a system that extends from central leadership down to neighborhoods.
Other ministries participate as technical partners in sectoral programs: the Ministry of Interior runs “Aware Youth... Safe Society,” Agriculture oversees the “Green Army,” Health manages “Health Ambassadors,” the communications sector supervises “Awareness in the Age of Communications,” and Technical Education and Vocational Training oversees “My Profession is My Future.”
The Ministry of Information plays an ongoing supporting role through annual coordination ahead of the launch of the courses, setting the framework for media coverage, including promotion and field reporting, as part of a plan to strengthen the centers’ presence in society.
These centers are managed by the “Supreme Committee for Summer Courses and Activities,” chaired by the prime minister in the Houthi administration, with membership including the ministers of education and youth and sports, a representative of the Endowments Authority, and representatives from the group’s mobilization and cultural apparatus.
Subcommittees are headed by provincial governors, with mobilization officials as deputies, and include directors of education, youth and sports, and endowments offices.
A Turning Point in 2026
While expansion of the summer centers had occurred gradually in previous years, 2026 marks a decisive turning point. Summer schooling is no longer optional; the group has moved to a new phase in which attendance is effectively compulsory. According to testimonies from students, parents, and teachers, a network of direct and indirect pressures is being applied, at times reaching the level of threats, placing families before a stark equation: comply or risk their children’s future.
Although this shift has not been officially announced, it has become a daily reality. Multiple sources confirm that, with preparations for this year’s summer centers underway, the group has escalated practices linking school procedures to participation in these programs.
For example, student results and admission for the next academic year are tied to participation, alongside pressure on school administrations to push students into the camps under threat of penalties. If a student wants their academic record to remain free of marks that could affect their future, including university admission, they must register in these centers.
In some schools, the release of results or acceptance into the following year is tied to a certificate of attendance from the summer center. Messages circulated on communication groups include implicit warnings that absence may negatively affect academic progression.
One message sent by a school administrator to mothers in a WhatsApp group contains a veiled threat that any student who does not attend the summer centers will be denied enrollment next year: “Dear mothers, please be informed that registration will not be accepted without a certificate from the summer center. We ask that students who have not yet registered do so and join the center to benefit.”
In another group, a teacher urged students: “Come early tomorrow, those registered and those not yet registered should register. The administration will not accept them at the start of the school year without the summer center certificate.”
A message attributed to a school principal in northern Ibb indicated that attendance at the summer centers is a condition for receiving exam results, while failing students are enticed with additional marks if they join the courses.
Declining Participation and Criminalization
According to sources, these measures were introduced out of concern that the summer centers might face declining turnout, as families are increasingly aware of their outcomes. Teacher A. Abdul Karim, who works in these centers, said that despite the group’s efforts to mobilize as many students as possible, participation has recently declined.
He noted that turnout has become very weak, and that recruiting students now requires significant time, sustained persuasion, and financial incentives.
The Yemeni Teachers’ Syndicate warned of the dangers posed by these centers, stating they have become organized tools for sectarian ideological mobilization and the recruitment of children and youth, as part of a systematic targeting of national identity and the education system in Yemen.
In a statement dated Sunday, April 12, 2026, the syndicate said the group has expanded these centers since taking control of Sanaa to attract the largest number of students, using them to instill doctrinal ideas based on concepts of lineage-based selection that conflict with national and religious values and serve a political project threatening Yemen’s security and stability.
Neglected Schools, Flourishing Centers
In its messaging, the group describes the summer centers as an “educational support channel” to compensate for gaps caused by war. However, according to many teachers, this is nothing more than a worse excuse than the offense itself. Schools themselves could serve that role if there were genuine intent to reform education.
Teachers argue that the group’s insistence on these centers reveals that the goal is not education, but the production of a generation prepared for early recruitment and ideological mobilization. They pose a central question: if the group holds full control over formal education and has successfully inserted its ideology into school curricula, why deliberately neglect schools, leaving them in a state of near collapse, without teachers, salaries, or basic educational resources?
This contradiction between stagnating schools during the academic year and their sudden revival in summer raises serious questions.
While significant attention, funding, and effort are directed toward summer centers that quickly turn into active and crowded spaces, formal education remains in a state of severe stagnation and resource deprivation, with thousands of schools lacking even the most basic requirements for learning.
