For the next five months, I will work with a group of Syrian girls to express through film what life in Za’atari refugee camp is like for them, where they have come from and what their dreams for their futures are. I have a camera, and they will have cameras. Together we will explore their lives, specifically investigating the challenges they confront in accessing quality education at the camp, and discovering what factors are helping them get there.
I am here with my fellow-in-discovery, Hardy Vieux, who will be looking at Syrian girls’ access to education from a public policy perspective. You can follow him on his blog here.
Ten days in at my fellowship with Save the Children International (SCI), of which two were spent at Za’atari with girls (and boys), I do not have much insight into what practices are and are not benefitting the girls. I did, however, get a glimpse of part of the mechanism that is working successfully in transforming the lives of girls at Za’atari: Alaa and Razan.
Alaa is the director of SCI’s Multi-Activity Center (MAC) for girls at Za’atari, and Razan is one of the staff at the center working with the girls on a daily basis. I met Alaa to describe the media workshops I wanted to do at the girls’ MAC - teaching the girls how to use media to express their experiences, contributing to the center’s work in making the girls’ time in Za’atari meaningful, and empowering the girls to provide insight into their lives through the telling and crafting of their own stories. When I told Alaa I was looking to work with girls 15-18, she immediately described one girl she thought would be a perfect fit. She spoke about this girl, her history, present challenges and the creativity and will with which she has moved on with her life in Za’atari, with such passion and inspiration, I knew then that Alaa was exactly the woman with whom I wanted to walk into Za’atari.
Za’atari refugee camp: what hasn’t been said? Over 3,500 journalists have touched down since it opened in July of 2012. If you have heard about the Syrian refugee crisis, it has more likely than not been reported to you from Za’atari, through images of endless white UNICEF tents and caravans, or aerial views of the sprawling grid of districts and shelters that house 120,000 Syrian refugees.
On weekdays an early morning bus for Za’atari staff leaves SCI’s headquarters in Amman for a 1.5 hour ride to the camp. When we arrive we pass through two security gates connected by a sandy road lined with boys leaning against empty wheelbarrows. Once we are in, we transfer to a local camp bus (also for staff). We continue along a whitewash of caravans (pre-fab structures) and grids of dusty footpaths until we arrive at a different kind of place entirely: the girls Multi-Activity Center. Behind secured fences that hold a large open area and a protected blacktop for sports are two white caravans, each bursting at the seams with color.
The staff at the girls MAC work tirelessly to make this space the brightest, in every sense of the word, place to be in Za’atari. Inside there are colorful hand-knit baby clothes and purses hanging on the walls, animal-shaped soap still drying in their molding trays, felt pillowed galaxies hanging from the ceiling, paper flowers lining tall shelves, all handcrafted by the girls who frequent the center. The MAC provides for girls and young women informal education through activities that range from soap making to Arabic lessons to yoga.
I am here with my fellow-in-discovery, Hardy Vieux, who will be looking at Syrian girls’ access to education from a public policy perspective. You can follow him on his blog here.
Ten days in at my fellowship with Save the Children International (SCI), of which two were spent at Za’atari with girls (and boys), I do not have much insight into what practices are and are not benefitting the girls. I did, however, get a glimpse of part of the mechanism that is working successfully in transforming the lives of girls at Za’atari: Alaa and Razan.
Alaa is the director of SCI’s Multi-Activity Center (MAC) for girls at Za’atari, and Razan is one of the staff at the center working with the girls on a daily basis. I met Alaa to describe the media workshops I wanted to do at the girls’ MAC - teaching the girls how to use media to express their experiences, contributing to the center’s work in making the girls’ time in Za’atari meaningful, and empowering the girls to provide insight into their lives through the telling and crafting of their own stories. When I told Alaa I was looking to work with girls 15-18, she immediately described one girl she thought would be a perfect fit. She spoke about this girl, her history, present challenges and the creativity and will with which she has moved on with her life in Za’atari, with such passion and inspiration, I knew then that Alaa was exactly the woman with whom I wanted to walk into Za’atari.
Za’atari refugee camp: what hasn’t been said? Over 3,500 journalists have touched down since it opened in July of 2012. If you have heard about the Syrian refugee crisis, it has more likely than not been reported to you from Za’atari, through images of endless white UNICEF tents and caravans, or aerial views of the sprawling grid of districts and shelters that house 120,000 Syrian refugees.
On weekdays an early morning bus for Za’atari staff leaves SCI’s headquarters in Amman for a 1.5 hour ride to the camp. When we arrive we pass through two security gates connected by a sandy road lined with boys leaning against empty wheelbarrows. Once we are in, we transfer to a local camp bus (also for staff). We continue along a whitewash of caravans (pre-fab structures) and grids of dusty footpaths until we arrive at a different kind of place entirely: the girls Multi-Activity Center. Behind secured fences that hold a large open area and a protected blacktop for sports are two white caravans, each bursting at the seams with color.
The staff at the girls MAC work tirelessly to make this space the brightest, in every sense of the word, place to be in Za’atari. Inside there are colorful hand-knit baby clothes and purses hanging on the walls, animal-shaped soap still drying in their molding trays, felt pillowed galaxies hanging from the ceiling, paper flowers lining tall shelves, all handcrafted by the girls who frequent the center. The MAC provides for girls and young women informal education through activities that range from soap making to Arabic lessons to yoga.
Alaa and Razan, two women, forces of positivity, calm, creativity and hope.
I asked Alaa if there are girls who have been with her throughout her entire year working at Za’atari. She said yes, there are a few, but many have left to go back to Syria or to enter into marriage. She then pulled out a massive stack of illustrations the girls have drawn depicting notions of early marriage. One of Alaa’s biggest initiatives at the center is educating not only the girls but the parents about consequences of early marriage, drawn from first-hand experiences at Za’atari. She said, for example, she has had a number of girls who were married off to men who the very next day abandon them. She and the girls will act out this and other stories in a play that they will perform for parents, in the outdoor space at their center, accompanied by their illustrations, which will be strung up throughout. Before I met Alaa, I had heard about the issue of early marriage, acknowledged the complexity, and experienced it from an arm’s length away. Alaa, though, made it tangible, through her stories of girls she had worked with, and the emotion with which she conveyed them.
In addition to serving girls, the MAC also opens its doors to the mothers (or women over 18). They come in early, before any of the younger girls, some with their children but most without. On my first day at the MAC, one of the volunteers set up a game of dodge ball in the blacktop area (a space fenced and lined with dark netting to keep it private from the public). Almost all of the mothers and grandmothers threw on fluorescent jerseys and played game after game of some pretty fierce and competitive dodge ball. Afterwards they gathered and sat in a circle, telling jokes and catching up. Most of the women and girls who come to the center are from Da’raa, and all of them are beyond ready to return home.
I remained in the sports court all day as flurries of girls swept in and landed around me. What’s your name? Where are you from? Have you ever been to Syria? How old are you? Are you married? How do you say I love you? Have you ever been to Syria? Will you sing for us? Do you have a boyfriend? Your hair is so pretty. Have you ever been to Syria? I must have met around 50 girls by the end of the day, all thrilled to have someone new to talk to that was staying around for longer than a few hours or days.
There are a lot of visitors that come through Za’atari and visit the center to ask questions of and hear from the girls. At one point in the day, while the girls were playing basketball in the court, they were asked to pause the game to sit down with a visitor to talk about girls’ education. It seemed like they had been through these question and answer sessions before. Who goes to school? (about 2/3 raise their hands) Why don’t you go to school? (We are waiting to go back to Syria, the school here is not like it is in Syria, it’s boring, the teachers are not good, etc.) A few girls were answering the questions. What do you want to do when you get older? (a couple of older girls answer “doctors”) After a few more questions she thanked them for their time, said she wished she could stay but had to move on to another location. She was a photographer and asked if she could take a group photo. As she was walking away I caught up with her and asked if she could email the photograph, so I could get to know the girls’ names. She said sure, but that most of the girls stepped out of the frame when she offered to take their photograph.
I remembered then an earlier conversation I had with Wisam, my supervisor and the Education Programme Advisor, who oversees all informal education programs at the camps and sites where SCI works. Wisam works determinedly. When I asked what the best part of her job is, she said when she sees all of the planning come to fruition on the ground. Getting there though comes with a lot of frustrations, one of them being that in the regional assessments of educational programming the youth voice is not truly heard. Most of the information comes from the parents, because, she said, when a teenager is asked why they aren’t in school, often they shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know.”
One of my hopes is that the documentary and media work with the girls over the following months will help to give authentic voice to their experiences.
Two days in at Za’atari, the girls and I were relishing simply in each other’s presence. I was so happy to be finally meeting them. The language barrier was challenging. Our interactions almost always went like this: I asked them one of six questions I know in Arabic. They squinted their eyes and repeated the word I mispronounced, confused. I said the word in English, which virtually none of them know, and they guessed the word in Arabic. I said the same word in English, they leaned in and said the same word in Arabic, and we ping-ponged the two words back and forth until at some point one of us threw our hands in the air. Often then the girl took my hand and guided me to a seat beside hers, or took us on a walk to nowhere in particular. There was a clear desire to just be close to someone. And for my first couple of days at Za’atari, this was the most important language I learned.
For now, I will be spending two days at Za’atari camp with the girls, and three days in SCI’s office in Amman working with the education team on programming.
I look forward to keeping you posted. Hopefully I will find a translator soon. In the meantime, as the girls and I say, yalla ya’ll.
DAY 2 AT ZA’ATARI: Symbols of LOVE and FREEDOM in the air…
In addition to serving girls, the MAC also opens its doors to the mothers (or women over 18). They come in early, before any of the younger girls, some with their children but most without. On my first day at the MAC, one of the volunteers set up a game of dodge ball in the blacktop area (a space fenced and lined with dark netting to keep it private from the public). Almost all of the mothers and grandmothers threw on fluorescent jerseys and played game after game of some pretty fierce and competitive dodge ball. Afterwards they gathered and sat in a circle, telling jokes and catching up. Most of the women and girls who come to the center are from Da’raa, and all of them are beyond ready to return home.
I remained in the sports court all day as flurries of girls swept in and landed around me. What’s your name? Where are you from? Have you ever been to Syria? How old are you? Are you married? How do you say I love you? Have you ever been to Syria? Will you sing for us? Do you have a boyfriend? Your hair is so pretty. Have you ever been to Syria? I must have met around 50 girls by the end of the day, all thrilled to have someone new to talk to that was staying around for longer than a few hours or days.
There are a lot of visitors that come through Za’atari and visit the center to ask questions of and hear from the girls. At one point in the day, while the girls were playing basketball in the court, they were asked to pause the game to sit down with a visitor to talk about girls’ education. It seemed like they had been through these question and answer sessions before. Who goes to school? (about 2/3 raise their hands) Why don’t you go to school? (We are waiting to go back to Syria, the school here is not like it is in Syria, it’s boring, the teachers are not good, etc.) A few girls were answering the questions. What do you want to do when you get older? (a couple of older girls answer “doctors”) After a few more questions she thanked them for their time, said she wished she could stay but had to move on to another location. She was a photographer and asked if she could take a group photo. As she was walking away I caught up with her and asked if she could email the photograph, so I could get to know the girls’ names. She said sure, but that most of the girls stepped out of the frame when she offered to take their photograph.
I remembered then an earlier conversation I had with Wisam, my supervisor and the Education Programme Advisor, who oversees all informal education programs at the camps and sites where SCI works. Wisam works determinedly. When I asked what the best part of her job is, she said when she sees all of the planning come to fruition on the ground. Getting there though comes with a lot of frustrations, one of them being that in the regional assessments of educational programming the youth voice is not truly heard. Most of the information comes from the parents, because, she said, when a teenager is asked why they aren’t in school, often they shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know.”
One of my hopes is that the documentary and media work with the girls over the following months will help to give authentic voice to their experiences.
Two days in at Za’atari, the girls and I were relishing simply in each other’s presence. I was so happy to be finally meeting them. The language barrier was challenging. Our interactions almost always went like this: I asked them one of six questions I know in Arabic. They squinted their eyes and repeated the word I mispronounced, confused. I said the word in English, which virtually none of them know, and they guessed the word in Arabic. I said the same word in English, they leaned in and said the same word in Arabic, and we ping-ponged the two words back and forth until at some point one of us threw our hands in the air. Often then the girl took my hand and guided me to a seat beside hers, or took us on a walk to nowhere in particular. There was a clear desire to just be close to someone. And for my first couple of days at Za’atari, this was the most important language I learned.
For now, I will be spending two days at Za’atari camp with the girls, and three days in SCI’s office in Amman working with the education team on programming.
I look forward to keeping you posted. Hopefully I will find a translator soon. In the meantime, as the girls and I say, yalla ya’ll.
DAY 2 AT ZA’ATARI: Symbols of LOVE and FREEDOM in the air…