Dear Supporters, 

Happy 2020! We're entering a new year with more impactful programming and humanitarian aid for refugee families in the rural community of Azraq, Jordan. Thank you for your continued support which makes it all possible! Read on for some of our recent programming highlights from Azraq.

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Poetry & Art Workshops

We started the year with new, enriching arts programming at The Azraq Center with our partners Voices of the Children! Grade 4 and 5 boys wrote poetry around the theme of "Legacy". Then, they interpreted their work into visual representations through making and painting masks of their faces! Look out for more great programming with VoC this year, including theater, film, and photography workshops coming this Spring!

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The Blossom Hill Montessori Room

TSF wrapped up the first semester of our new Montessori-inspired Early Education room at The Azraq Center thanks to the support of the Blossom Hill Foundation. This Spring, we look forward to expanding our partnership and opening a second class, bringing innovative early education to 30 more Syrian and Jordanian children ages 3-5 in Azraq! Check out the below video for more on this exciting initiative:

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Winter Distributions

Thanks to generous donations, TSF distributed nearly 100 food packages last month to families in need with our partners Nachmyat Eastern Badia Cooperative. Packages contain staple items like rice, oil, canned beans, and more. Thanks to everyone who continues to support our humanitarian aid initiatives!

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An Interview with Business Insider

TSF Executive Director Lexi spoke with Business Insider last week about our work in Jordan and the importance of supporting the host community along with refugees in Azraq. Check out the interview in the video below!

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Thank you for your continued support! Consider making a 2020 donation to The Syria Fund today!

With gratitude,
The Syria Fund Team

Click on the image below to read our 2019 report from The Azraq Center!

This month, thanks to the incredible support of the Blossom Hill Foundation, The Azraq Center launched a first-of-its kind program in Azraq: a Montessori Early Education Center!

Not only is this the FIRST early education center in South Azraq, it is incorporating the proven innovative Montessori learning method into the classroom, something never before seen in this small, rural town. 

Here’s how we did it:

1. Partner with a World Class Montessori Institution

We partnered with the Modern Montessori School in Amman, Jordan, a 30+ year old institution, to conduct an intensive Montessori teacher training for 11 trainees. Over the course of 3 months, our group of trainees commuted to Amman for training in Montessori theory and developmental psychology. The course included hands-on experience in Montessori classrooms as well as lecture time with certified trainers. At the end of 180 hours, each trainee sat for an exam and earned a Ministry of Education-certified certificate in Montessori Education! 

TSF meets with MMS in Amman

Trainee Nour Al Fayiz

Trainee Haneen Al Shaalan

2. Create a classroom

Montessori classrooms are set up with specific guidelines and intentionality. We engaged with a local carpenter and local furniture manufacturer to create the required materials for our classroom. This includes KG-sized classroom furniture in addition to the specific Montessori tools and activities that our students will learn with. We are proud to source all of our materials locally to support the Jordanian economy and small businesses. Once everything was delivered, it was fun to unpack it all and set it all up!

Alia and Lexi measure shelves

Haneen and Nour set up the room

Teacher Su’ad unpacks

Montessori Materials unpacked & ready!

3. Select the students

The Azraq Center conducted an extensive outreach campaign to select 30 students ages 3-5 to participate in the program. Students come from both Syrian and Jordanian families, in an effort to bring families together and support social cohesion here in Azraq. We took measures to ensure families understood the level of commitment required for the program, would ensure regular attendance from their children, and were open and receptive to the ideas of both early education AND alternative learning methods.

Majed, 5

Tuleen, 4

Asmaa, 5

Amed, 3

4. Spread awareness of the new concept

Since this was the first time that our beneficiaries had ever even heard the term “Montessori”, it was important to share the philosophy behind the program and prep the families for what to expect! Our three selected teachers and school administrators hosted an introductory awareness session for all the moms to learn about the program and ask questions. We conducted a pre-program assessment and moderated a lively and engaging discussion! The parents were particularly enthusiastic about the philosophy behind Montessori learning, the idea that students learn through peer-to-peer learning and activity/play base vs. the traditional classroom environment.

Principal Alia speaks with families

Teacher Su’ad explains Montessori philosophy

5. Put it all together! 

Now that we have a beautiful space, qualified teachers, engaged parents, and eager students, it is time to get learning! Classes are finally beginning and we can’t wait to show you the results of this incredible effort! Stay tuned as our classroom gets going!

From left to right: Haneen, Su’ad, Lexi, Nour, Alia

School might be on break but the learning does not stop for the summer. At the Azraq Center, we've adapted our summer schedule to promote enriching education while keeping elements of summer fun!

Embracing Creativity

Thursday is our craft day. Whether it's a musical performance or a drawing workshop, you can always expect your artistic side to be satisfied on Thursdays at the Azraq Center. Our amazing teachers have gone above and beyond this summer through a wide diversity of engaging and unique activities that allow students to think in new ways.

Staying Active

The benefits of exercise span from enhanced academic performance to prolonged smiles throughout the day. We start every morning with guided exercises, making sure all of our students are not only staying active but doing it in a way that makes it fun. We also frequently take trips to the nearby soccer field where our students are navigating teamwork, healthy competition, and bending it like Beckham.

Giving back to our school

We all have a role to play! To give back to the campus, students help out to maintain and clean up around the school alongside teachers and staff. Students saw the intersection of creativity and utility as they channeled their inner artist into repainting walls and murals. This process of giving back creates a shared sense of compassion and care.

Local Military Memorial

6th-grade students spent the day learning more about Azraq Town at a local military memorial and museum. This visit yielded an enriching historic and cultural experience for our students who learned more about the history of their town.

Magic in Azraq

The Azraq Center welcomed Magician Jamie Jibberish from Magic for Smiles who specializes in humanitarian magic for refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Jamie dazzled students with his tricks while promoting self-confidence through performance.

Learning with our moms

This summer, we opened our classroom doors so that our mothers didn't just observe the programs their children are in but were able to actively engage with them IN the classroom. We are committed to sharing a love of education that extends into the home and engaging with parents is an essential step in this process!

Acting for a Cause

Fourth and fifth-grade students at the center participated in a play entitled Conserving Our Environment. The play explored the effects that littering has on trees and the natural landscape, urging everyone to pick up their trash.

Monday Morning Radio

The Azraq Center's Monday morning radio is an opportunity for students to engage with their classmates and develop their public speaking skills. Students take turns each morning to take the microphone and read out loud, tell a story, or share an update from the news

Eid al Fitr

After hosting several iftar dinners and providing food distributions throughout the month of Ramadan, the Azraq Center celebrated Eid al Fitr with our community with a banquet dinner and lots of celebrations.

Dance for Azraq high school exams

Students from The Azraq Center performed a traditional dance to celebrate students at a local high school as they took their final exams.

Eid al Adha

This year we went all out for our Eid al Adha celebrations. From arts and crafts to musical performances, our community came together this holiday providing a joyous time for everyone. In addition to these holiday activities, we celebrated by distributing fresh meat and new clothes. This Eid proved a great culmination to an amazing summer at The Azraq Center.

From its strategic location to its natural water sources, the Jordanian town of Azraq has long held significance. Situated in the Azraq Oasis, it serves as the only permanent source of fresh water in approximately 12,000 square kilometers of desert. This opulent land has seen centuries of visitors from Lawrence of Arabia to rare birds from around the world. 

Did you know?

Azraq contains two major nature reserves: The Azraq Wetlands and The Shomari Reserve.

The town is home to multiple ethnic groups, including Druze and Chechens who settled in the town in the early 1900s.

Chechens, fleeing Russian persecution, were drawn to Azraq in the early 20th century for its farming and fishing opportunities. They still maintain their language and traditions until today!

Water Buffalo, once extinct in the reserve, have been reintroduced to the Wetlands Reserve - if you’re lucky, you can find them there!

More than 280 unique species of migratory birds have been recorded in Azraq - some originating from as far off as Africa and Scandinavia!

Qasr Al Azraq (Azraq Castle) famously served as a Castle for Lawrence of Arabia, and you can find architectural examples from multiple eras at this historic site! It was originally built by the Romans in the early 4th century. The Umayyads used the site as a hunting palace and in the 13th century, the Ayyubids significantly expanded the castle and used it to defend against Crusaders. Later, Turks stationed a garrison at the site in the 16th century and in 1918, Arabs (and Lawrence of Arabia) used the site during the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Fun Fact: The entrance of Qasr Al Azraq has indents from when guards would play board games using pebbles.

Human activity has not only affected this desert oasis landscape through the depletion of natural wetlands— since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the population of Azraq has nearly doubled from the influx of refugees.

With strains on all sectors of the economy in Azraq town, The Syria Fund is committed to providing opportunities for Syrians and Jordanians to improve their situations and create stronger social cohesion. This starts with getting every kid back in school.

At The Azraq Center, we believe that giving children a seat in a classroom is an essential first step in addressing their needs, but we also know that more is needed. In addition to remedial education provided on a daily basis, we enrich our students lives with classes in art, music, and more. And not only that, we want our kids to connect with their community and know the rich history of the town they live in! We take field trips to local historic sites as our students spend time discovering the history, geography, and ethnic diversity of their town!

Dear TSF Supporters,

We hope you are staying warm in these winter months! Read on for highlights from the first two months of 2019. Thank you as always for your consistent support - everything we do is possible because of you!

Winter Humanitarian Aid

A New Tent: In January, an intense winter storm hit Azraq with freezing temperatures and gale-force winds. A Jordanian family with four young children living in a tent in a rural desert area literally lost their home in the middle of the night when the winds ripped the tent from under them.
TSF and our local partners at the South Azraq Women’s Association responded immediately. Police picked up the family from the desert and brought them to one of our classrooms that we quickly converted into a shelter for the night.
In the morning, we brought warm jackets and other outdoor clothes for the children. We purchased a new sturdy tent and carpet for the family. Within hours, the tent was properly set up and the family was back on their feet.

Fuel & Wheelchairs: TSF additionally distributed fuel for gas heaters to over 30 families and brought wheelchairs to 5 individuals in need this month. Special thanks to our donors Adnan and the Sunrise Rotary Club for supporting these efforts!

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Poetry & Art Workshop in Azraq

TSF partnered with the organization Voices of the Children to run a 3-part workshop with the students at our Azraq Center. In exchange with a private school in Geneva, Switzerland, the program centers around the concept “What is Home?” through three distinct workshops:

Part 1: Poetry - Students were introduced to poetry composition and each student wrote their own poem beginning with “Home is…”.

Part 2: Artistic Interpretation - The poems were translated and exchanged with the other student group. Our students in Jordan read the Geneva poems and created drawings reflecting the words they read. The students learned from each other's poetry that even though they come from such different circumstances, they found they had more in common than what sets them apart! 

Part 3: Mural Creation - Next week, we will conduct the third part of the workshop where students will create a large-scale mural using elements from their drawings! This summer, we will share the mural in a moving exhibition in Jordan and other areas!

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Montessori Teacher Training

With support from the Blossom Hill Foundation, The Syria Fund will be opening up the first ever early education program in Azraq at our new campus this Spring. To create a program inspired by Montessori teaching methodologies, we partnered with the Modern Montessori School (MMS) in Amman, Jordan to host a 180-hour teacher training program for 11 local trainees from Azraq. The training provided both theoretical and hands-on learning opportunities at the school in Amman. Through MMS, we’ve acquired an Arabic-language Montessori curriculum and when our school opens this Spring, we will host 30 children ages 3-5 in this innovative setting!

Make sure to follow us on Facebook & Instagram (@thesyriafund) to stay up-to-date on our activities! We appreciate everything you do to support the communities we serve.

With gratitude,
The Syria Fund team

A Summer Update from The Syria Fund

Summer is in full swing for our beneficiaries in Jordan! Check out updates below and thank you as always for supporting The Syria Fund's important work for refugees in Jordan.

A New Campus for The Azraq School

This summer, we are thrilled to partner with the European-based NGO Emergency Architecture and Human Rights (EA-HR) to build a new campus for The Azraq School! EA-HR committed to build 100 classrooms for refugee children and, as part of this plan, they are constructing a new campus for us less than a mile down the road from our current school. EA-HR hired a local construction crew of Syrians and Jordanians and is training them, while they work, in sustainable building techniques. 

The new campus (Campus B) will include four classrooms, an IT lab, library, kitchen, and a sports field! Upon completion, it will host up to 200 Syrian and Jordanian children and youth and employ nearly 20 adults for the upcoming school year!

A special thank you for the generosity and partnership of the Moosa Family, our partners at EA-HR, HRJ and SAWA, WeWork NY, and everyone else who has made this expansion a reality! Many more updates to come throughout the summer so be sure to like us onFacebook for pictures, videos and more!

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Summer Camp at Campus A

A short walk up the road from the construction site, the summer program on Campus A is in full swing. Special classes, activities, games and more are offered in a camp format to our more than 110 students every day!

Recent activities have included: gardening, soccer club, art and music, IT presentations, reading in the library, and relay races!

Our education programs are 100% donor supported! Consider setting up a recurring donation today to support teacher salaries, school supplies and more!

Ongoing Humanitarian Aid Programming

Throughout Ramadan and the summer, The Syria Fund has continued our ongoing food and humanitarian aid distributions.

• 150+ food boxes were distributed to families in need throughout the month of June. With our partners, we delivered fresh chickens along with non-perishable items for families in advance of the Eid holiday.
• Our successful Mother’s Day campaign raised money to bring essential hygiene kits to 100+ moms.
• As always, we will continue to supply food, hygiene, and other critical items to families in need across Northern Jordan.

Volunteers in Action

This World Refugee Day, The Syria Fund teamed up with WeWork for two days of fundraising activities in New York City.

Across two different WeWork locations, the TSF team shared the story of The Azraq School's expansion and raised money to furnish the new classrooms! Thanks to the entire WeWork community for coming out and showing that you #StandWithRefugees!

Staying in Touch

If you’re interested in getting more regular updates from The Syria Fund, make sure to follow us on social media!

Thank you for all that you do to keep our programs going!

With gratitude,
The Syria Fund team

From our students at The Azraq School and our entire team at The Syria Fund: Ramadan Kareem! May your month be filled with happiness, love, and peace with family and loved ones. 

This Ramadan, we're distributing food boxes with staple items like rice, beans, oil and more to vulnerable families in Jordan. Learn more and donate a $35 food box today:

Dear Supporters,

We are proud to present The Syria Fund's 2017 Annual Report! Read on to learn about our major 2017 accomplishments and where The Syria Fund is heading in 2018.

With your support, in 2017 we:

• Raised over $200,000 to support refugees and other vulnerable families in Jordan
• Distributed food and humanitarian aid to over 1,000 families
• Provided education opportunities to more than 250 children
• Expanded our music program to reach an additional 100 children
• Created jobs for 15 adults in Jordan
• Registered our flagship education program, The Azraq School, as an official education program with the Jordanian Ministry of Education

As you read about The Syria Fund's major accomplishments in 2017, please consider setting up a monthly donation to The Syria Fund. Your monthly contributions allow us to better plan our humanitarian aid distributions and create new spaces for children in our education programs.

Everything we do is possible because of your generous support! Thank you to each and every one of you for taking action and contributing money, time, and skills to make a real difference for the many refugee families we serve. 

With immense gratitude,

Lexi Shereshewsky
Executive Director, The Syria Fund

Dear TSF Supporters,

Happy Spring! The Syria Fund has been hard at work making major expansions to our education programs, aligning them more closely than ever with the official Jordanian Response Plan, and reaching out to different groups, like teenagers and young adults, to broaden our impact! Read on to see what we've been up to thanks to your support.

The Stamp of Approval for The Azraq School

Over the last 6 months, The Syria Fund team has been working with the Jordanian government to register The Azraq School as an approved education program within the Official Jordan Response Plan to the Refugee Crisis. We received approvals from the local ministry of commerce in Zarqa Governorate (the governorate for Azraq), the Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Education, and finally the Prime Minister’s Office! These approvals will allow us to expand the program, hire more teachers and serve more students, and benefit from the resources and support from the Ministry of Education. Since the program is a joint project with our local partner SAWA, registration will also enhance their capacity to serve the community of Azraq. We are so proud to share with you this exciting development!

A New School with MECI for 150 Kids

TSF Director Lexi signed on the dotted line this month to collaborate on a new education program with our longtime partner the Middle East Children’s Institute (MECI). We’ll work with MECI to bring their proven remedial education and psychosocial support curriculum to 150 vulnerable children in Northern Jordan. We look forward to launching this program in the coming months and expanding our mission of making sure every child has the education they deserve! Special thanks to the Kathryn B. McQuade Foundation, the Giuliani Foundation for the Arts, Travel with Purpose, Students for Refugees and the many individuals who donated to bring this program to life!

Songs for Syrians 3rd Annual Music Week

TSF was proud to host S’Cool Sounds Director Nina Stern for the 3rd Annual Songs for Syrians Music Week at The Azraq School! Over the course of a week, students immersed themselves in music and art with courses in recorder, percussion, singing (in Arabic and English!), and drawing. The program culminated in a final performance in front of 30+ parents and community members. Music has become an integral part of our school community and our students love to express themselves through the arts! Look out for a video recap in the coming weeks!

A Skype Exchange with Canada

This month, Azraq School students participated in a Skype exchange with students at the Dixon Hall Music Camp in Toronto, Canada. The kids exchanged songs, asked each other questions, and learned about each other’s customs. It was an amazing experience for all! Read more about the exchange HERE in the Toronto Star.

New Programs to Reach Teenagers

In addition to our work with students ages 6-14 at The Azraq School, we are working to expand our efforts to reach other vulnerable groups including teenagers and young adults. The first stage was a percussion club pilot program targeting teenage boys during our music week. High school drop-out rates among Syrians in Jordan are high and several of the boys who participated in this pilot program have completely stopped attending school. Bringing them together around percussion helped them focus on communication, rhythms and concentration - valuable skills they can carry over to other areas in their lives. At the end of the program, the boys had made tremendous progress and were confident enough to successfully perform in front of 30+ community members! Stay tuned for more updates as we expand our presence through The Azraq School to reach teenagers and other community members who need it most!

Thank you for continuing to support The Syria Fund's work to reach vulnerable refugee children and families in Jordan! Everything we do is possible because of your generosity. 

Consider continuing to support our work by setting up a monthly recurring donation today!

Lastly, Follow Us On Facebook to keep up-to-date on our latest activities and goings-on!

With gratitude,

The Syria Fund team