On Thursday, a group of Syrian refugees who volunteer with CARE in Jordan and Lebanon joined CARE staff in running the famous ‘Dead to Red’ marathon. The group is running the 242 kilometres between the Dead Sea and Red Sea in a relay to raise awareness and funds for the ten million people affected by the crisis, which enters its third year this weekend. Among those taking part is former teacher, Amal Al Basha, who wrote on Women’s Agenda yesterday about why she’s taking part in the marathon. Today Reshma Khan, explains why she’s joining Syrian refugees in the marathon.
When I was in university, I learnt about the refugee crises of the world. But learning about world conflict and its impact cannot compare to meeting a refugee with a name, an identity, a person.
Often, we get so used to this kind of work, what we refer to as Emergencies and Development, that we forget the one person and focus on the statistic; refugees just become another group of people to us, just another target ‘client’.
We forget about the story of Shukri, a woman whose husband was killed in Somalia, a woman who was gang-raped on her way to Kenya, but still made it to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya and still finds reasons to smile amidst the chaos. I met Shukri a few years ago, during the 2011 Horn of Africa crisis, and she remains etched in my mind as the story of a refugee, of a person who had to leave her home and everything that she knew because of senseless conflict. She is one of over 10 million people around the world who have had to forcibly leave their homes due to conflict.
2,000 miles away from Dadaab, in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, there are more than 100,000 refugees, making it stand amongst the world’s largest refugee camps, and, after Dadaab, the largest. But in addition to the refugees in the camp, there are hundreds of thousands of more Syrian refugees in Jordan’s towns and cities, including Amman. In fact, 80% of all Syrian refugees in Jordan live in overcrowded apartments, converted garages and sheds, many sleeping on floors without mattresses and blankets.
In these places, as in Dadaab, there are Syrian children, women and men, each with a name and identity. They may be different from those in Dadaab in the way they look and the language they speak, but they have in one thing in common; they are all refugees. Each Syrian is a person who doesn’t know if they will be able to return home soon, or perhaps ever. Each one had to flee their homes, carrying little but the clothes on their backs and a few other items.
Imagine such an existence. A life where, having been a university professor in Somalia or a doctor in Syria, you are reduced to simply being a refugee, with no rights to work in your host country, and no way of taking care of your family’s needs without having to depend on donations.
While these two groups of people have never met each other, they have the world’s attention. Dadaab, having been in existence for over two decades, remains on the world stage, while Zaatari and the towns and cities in Jordan have held our attention over the past three years since the Syrian crisis erupted. Women and children in particular, in both places, bear the brunt of the chaos.
CARE has a long history of humanitarian assistance in refugee crises around the world. We continue to provide assistance to the majority of Somali refugees in Dadaab and to Syrian refugees in Jordan with food distributions, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene, and psychosocial support, recognising that a good support network is essential to the recovery of refugees fleeing a war-torn country.
I am running in the Dead Sea to Red Sea Marathon on March 13 because I believe in CARE’s work to help the refugees, and I want the world to know that refugees around the world still need our help, and that there is still so much more to be done. We could be any one of these refugees.
I am also going to deliver messages to Syrian children from children in the Dadaab refugee camp, many of whom who have been born refugees and know no other life apart from their current existence. Despite their circumstances, these children in Dadaab want to give hope to their Syrian brothers and sisters in Jordan, to tell them that they are not alone, that the children of Dadaab know exactly what it is like to flee your home and everything that you know. I am also hoping to take messages from the Syrian children back to Dadaab, to create a lasting link between these two vulnerable populations.
We owe it to the refugee, to each person with their own identity and their joys and sorrows, to fundraise and do more to ensure that they can live a dignified life despite their circumstances.
For more information on the Syrian refugee crisis, click here.