"I have been teaching here at the Azraq Community School for two years and before this, I taught for 15 years in Idlib, Syria.  I love working with children.

I used to teach the primary grades in Syria. Here I teach Grade 1.

When I first came to Azraq, the school was still just starting. I taught Syrian children of all ages. I had 35 children in grades 1, 2, and 3. I taught from 8am -12pm for one group of students and then the second group was from 12pm-4pm. Then we were able to open up another classroom. We divided the classes and got more teachers, but for 2 months I was the only teacher.

I now have 30 students in the classroom and no helper. I am capable of doing without though. I used to have 30-35 students in Idlib.

I am in need of resources, large images, posters, things to put on the board. I need books -  these are essential. They are the basics that any school needs. I want clean books with colors, not copies. It’s depressing that way. The students will react better with colorful images.

We need English teachers. We do teach them. But it’s different when a specialist English teacher comes in- they will benefit from that. I can and do teach every other subject on its own. I am even doing physical education with them.

The English classes are essential to happen on a regular basis and more than once a week and for all the classes.

There are intelligent students in my class - but Syrian children face a lot of difficulties.

I have four children, two girls and two boys. My husband is at home with my 5 year old. I have a lot of pressure in my life. My husband is unemployed. I am working at home and at work. I am tired.

Mostly, I dream of going back to Syria."

Ilham, Teacher at the Azraq Community School

"I want to help the refugee children receive an education because I feel that all children deserve the opportunity to flourish and reach their potential.  My education has shaped me into the person I am today.  With ancestral ties to Syria, my heart breaks for the people living through years of war and uncertainty.   I am particularly saddened for the innocent children. It must be terrifying to be displaced from your home with no clear sense of where to go next.  My family and I intend to help families and children in need throughout this time of instability, and are proud to support all of the initiatives of the Syria Fund."

Molly, 17, Volunteer
 

Happy Spring! 2016 is off to a great start and we are excited to share with you some updates.

Songs for Syrians

We are proud to announce an exciting new program that The Syria Fund will be bringing to our partner school in Azraq, Jordan this June.  In partnership with S'Cool Sounds, a music non-profit based in New York City, The Syria Fund will host an in-depth five-day music and dance workshop for 100 Syrian children aged 8-15.  Music director and concert musician Nina Stern and Montessori music educator Matilda Giampietro, PhD, will share their innovative approach to the group study of instrumental music and dance with the students and teachers at SAWA using recorders and local percussion. The workshop will culminate in a concert for the wider community featuring our students, teachers, and local musicians who will perform both traditional Syrian songs and ones we bring from the U.S.  We are excited to incorporate students around the United States into this program by teaching Syrian melodies and connecting students with Syrian kids in Azraq for a cultural exchange through the language of music! Stay tuned for more information on this program as it develops! 

Future musicians at school in Azraq!

Expanding Our Education Programs

In 2015, The Syria Fund partnered with the White Hands Association in East Badia, Jordan to create three tent classrooms for Syrian refugee children living in rural areas who had no access to education.  The classes have been extremely successful and we are thrilled to work with WHA to expand the program!

A recent survey of Syrian families living within walking distance of the WHA office found over 500 children ages 6-18 who are not attending any form of school. To address this massive need and build off our previous successes with the tent classrooms in East Badia and our partner school in Azraq, we are helping our partner organization WHA open three new caravan classrooms. These new spaces will accommodate up to 90 students. TSF is purchasing one of the new classrooms, paying the salary for a full-time teacher, and providing 60 students with all of the materials they need to get learning again! The new classrooms will also benefit others in the community by offering vocational training, sewing classes, and other programs for people of all ages. Your support has made this possible!  

Warm Welcome To The #CantDoNothing Community

Finally, we want to say a warm welcome to all those who donated to The Syria Fund and joined our mailing list after learning about us through #CantDoNothing, the initiative of actress Milana Vayntraub.  Milana, who is a refugee herself, was moved to act after going on vacation in Greece and realizing that as a global citizen, she couldn't stand by and do nothing while refugees risked their lives crossing to Greece in search of a better lives in Europe.  Her moving documentary about her time on Lesvos Island in Greece has moved tens of thousands to join the movement and get involved, because we #cantdonothing. The amazing support from the CDN community has enabled The Syria Fund to expand our education programs into 2017, continue our eyeglasses program to purchase prescription lenses for hundreds of Syrian kids, and extend our border relief program to provide food and necessary supplies to refugees trapped on the Syrian-Jordanian border.  

Thank you as always for your continued support - we couldn't do it without you!

Like us on Facebook to stay updated on all of our projects!

Best,
Lexi, Demetri and The Syria Fund team

Over 17,000 Syrian refugees are stranded in a remote desert area between the Syrian/Jordanian border, trying to get to Jordan. The number has increased by the thousands in the last few days as the situation in Syria becomes more and more dangerous. Unable to enter Jordan due to new restrictions, their situation is rapidly deteriorating. 

Last week we sent out an urgent appeal to you asking for $3,000 to bring aid to this desperate community. You answered the call.  We are happy to report that in just three days, our supporters donated over $3,600!  That brings The Syria Fund's total support for these relief efforts to $5,600.

Since last Thursday, our partners at HRJ bought, collected, packaged and distributed several tons of aid including food, blankets, heaters, hygiene items, warm clothing and shoes.  These items were transported to the border and safely distributed to families there with the help of the Jordanian military. This was all done within one week and with zero overhead costs - 100% of all donations went directly towards this effort.

Unfortunately, 17,000 Syrians, including elderly, pregnant women, and children, are still trapped on the border. The Syria Fund will continue to respond to this emergency situation and if you would like to continue to support this specific effort, please mention "border response" in donations here. 

Check out the pictures below to see how far your donations went and thank you as always for your support!

Dear Supporters, 

Happy New Year!  We hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season.  It was an amazing year for The Syria Fund – we formally launched our organization over the summer and in just 5 months we raised over $75,000 that has gone directly to support Syrian refugees in Jordan who desperately need our help.  Here are a few highlights from 2015:

We supported the construction and furnishing of a new library at our partner school in Azraq, Jordan. The library now has over 1,000 books and provides a safe place to read and learn for hundreds of children. We are ensuring long term sustainability for this and all of our projects by committing to provide regular payments for teacher salaries and other logistical aid including equipment, furnishings, and school supplies so that all of our projects are impactful for years to come. 

We purchased two tents and outfitted them to serve as classrooms for over 100 children in East Badia, Jordan who had no access to education.  Today, they’re back in school!

We expanded our education initiatives and began a partnership with the Middle East Children’s Institute (MECI), a charity that runs catch-up classes for Syrian children in existing Jordanian schools, which are unused in the afternoons. We’ve committed to helping them expand their activities by supporting teachers, creating extracurricular programs, providing school supplies for all children, and ensuring that host schools are in top condition by refurbishing any run-down or damaged classrooms.

Lastly, we continued to respond to emergency needs on the ground by purchasing and distributing supplies like warm clothing, eye glasses, gas heaters, medical equipment, toothbrushes, and more with the help of our partners at HRJ.  For example, when twenty Syrian families lost everything in heavy rains and flooding in late October, The Syria Fund provided heaters, blankets, and other essential goods to get them back on their feet.

And we are just getting started. As we grow as an organization, our projects grow, our local partner organizations grow, and the communities we support prosper.

We have some exciting initiatives ahead and as we close the books on 2015, we want to say again how appreciative we are for your continued support.  December was our biggest fundraising month yet and we look forward to continuing our efforts in 2016!

Warmly,
Lexi, Demetri & The Syria Fund Team

Dear Supporters,

It has been a hard couple of weeks for everyone. First there were the heart-breaking attacks in Beirut, Paris, and Bamako.  Then there has been the increasingly hostile rhetoric focusing people’s feelings of anger and vulnerability into blaming Syrian refugees, who in many cases have fled violence as horrific as what we’ve seen recently.

As people discuss barring refugees in this country and elsewhere, many are tempted to see the plight of Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey as someone else’s problem.  But there is a direct link between the situation for refugees in Syria's surrounding countries and the thousands of people risking death and spending their life savings to board a smuggler’s boat for Europe.  That is why we are continuing our work to help the refugees living in Jordan. 

Refugees will feel less pressure to leave for Europe if we can provide basic needs, including education, food packages, and access to household and medical supplies.  If Syrians remain in the surrounding countries, it will be easier for them to return to help rebuild their homeland once the violence is over.  Indeed, every single Syrian we've spoken with in Jordan expressed a desire to return to their homes and communities in Syria. 
 
Here at The Syria Fund, we know we’ve still got a lot of work to do.  With your help, we continue to focus our efforts on creating access to education for the thousands of Syrian kids in Jordan out of school and we continue to respond to emergency situations through direct giving.  This week, as we gather around the table for Thanksgiving and think of our many blessings, we want you all to know we are grateful for your continued support - thank you.

Best,
Lexi, Demetri and The Syria Fund Team

We are back from Jordan. We had an amazing trip, made significant investments in several projects (look out for a full report coming soon), and most importantly, strengthened relationships with our partner organizations.

We are particularly fortunate to work with several qualified and inspiring women in Jordan who work tirelessly in their communities to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis.  Catherine Ashcroft, Nofa Fayz, and Zeinab al-Zubaib each run their own organizations in Jordan.  Although each of them works with different groups and use different methods, they all have the same drive, generosity, and compassion and they are all making a huge impact on the ground.  We hope you enjoy meeting our inspiring partners.

Catherine Ashcroft, Helping Refugees in Jordan (HRJ)

We met Catherine Ashcroft, director of HRJ & Mobilization Specialist for Mercy Corps International, on our first trip to Jordan in March of 2013. Catherine is English, but has been living in the Middle East with her husband and three children for the better part of the last 10 years. In 2012, she started collecting discarded items from friends and families and bringing them to communities with large refugee populations. Quickly, her two car garage became a massive sorting center, housing donations and items purchased in bulk for distribution. What began as a minor volunteer effort has blossomed into a charity that helps thousands of people.  Catherine now works with a network of local Jordanian organizations to address emergency needs and support community projects around Northern Jordan. 

Nofa Fayz, South Azraq Women’s Association (SAWA)

Our partner Nofa has been director of the South Azraq Women's Association (SAWA) since the 1990s, when Azraq was a small town of 9,000. Today, she serves a community nearly twice the size, including over 8,000 Syrian refugees – about 2,000 of whom are young children not in school. Around the perimeter of SAWA’s property, Nofa has been able to set up three caravan classrooms that serve 110 children through the help of partner organizations like ours and donors like you. The kids come five days a week and learn Reading, Writing, and Math. We are so impressed with Nofa and her organization and are thrilled to be helping her expand the capacity of her school by building a library on the second floor of her main office.

Zeinab al-Zubaib, White Hands Association

Zeinab runs The White Hands Association, a small charity located in East Badia, an area in Northeast Jordan. Many Syrian bedouins have fled the war to take refuge in this extremely rural, desert area. Zeinab and her organization find isolated groups of refugees and help respond to their emergency needs. These families are living deep in poverty and don’t have access to many basic items.  Until recently, there were no schools for over 100 children in a community nearby. Through Zeinab’s organization, we are helping to establish two semi-permanent classrooms that will host classes for these children. Zeinab coordinates with the leaders of each community to establish programs and to address more immediate needs, like winter preparation. In addition to helping build one of the tents we supplied during our recent trip, we were happy to bring over 100 winter prep packages including warm coats, scarves, hats, gloves, and milk packets and to distribute them to the sweet children that we met.  This winter, we hope to bring over 2,000 winter prep kits to Syrian children in this region.

We are so grateful to have found dynamic women leading organizations that work every day to make a difference in the lives of those in the most need of assistance.  Help us continue to support these valuable programs today!

In Northeast Jordan, Syrian Bedouin communities that have fled the country live in deep poverty, far removed from any major towns and more importantly, any proper schools.  In this remote location, they cannot adequately support their families. One of our local partners, the White Hands Association (WHA) works to address the needs of these Syrians who are among the most vulnerable communities in Jordan. We are working with WHA to increase children’s access to education and provide winter clothing and milk for dozens of families.

On Wednesday, we left Amman with our cars filled with the winter supplies and powdered milk that we purchased earlier in the week.  As we got off the highway and drove east, the houses were fewer and farther between and the desert more prominent than ever.  Our goal was to deliver winter packages to nearly 100 children and to help erect two semi-permanent tents that we purchased to serve as classrooms.

Large tents will sit on top of concrete floors, furnished with carpets, desks, heaters, and solar lights. Three qualified teachers have already agreed to travel to this community to teach the children, and we hope to secure additional teachers once the program is up and running. Where there was no school, now there are two.

This is the kind of direct giving that we are proud to provide through The Syria Fund.  From an 8-year-old girl named Zahra who looked at us with a giant smile and said “thank you” after receiving her new warm coat to the group of boys who told us how excited they were to finally go to school again for the first time since leaving Syria, we can see the difference we are making. The families we visited were grateful and gracious to us and we worked together to build the tents and determine the logistics of how the classrooms will operate.  We were happy to spend time with Zainab al-Zubaid, the energetic director of WHA, and to observe the relationships she has built within the community she serves.

Although the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis are incredibly complicated and cannot be solved by any one organization, our goals are simple. We identify vulnerable communities with tangible and addressable needs and work with qualified local partners to provide solutions. We are committed to sustaining the projects we’ve worked on this week over the long term. Your continued support makes that possible.

Imagine: you come from a place with a deep rich history and you have a warm home, a kitchen filled with delicious food, a school for your children, and green space in your town for picnics and late night strolls.

Now, your country is in crisis and you have to flee. The nearest safe place is Jordan. And as you enter, you are ushered into Za’atri refugee camp, the largest in Jordan.  There, you find a huge patch of desert converted into an emergency city.  Four years later, you are still there, in the middle of the nowhere, in a pre-fabricated house, living exclusively by handouts. This is now your life.

So what do you do? You find a way to get back some of the things you’ve lost – except that you can’t return to Syria. You find a person that you know within Jordan who can vouch for you and you leave Za’atri, knowing that once you do, you won’t be able to return.

Za’atri camp is where we found ourselves today, hosted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the organization responsible for managing the camp.  We were able to see the processing center (the first stop for Syrian refugees who want to cross the border into Jordan), a health clinic, a community center and library, and the main market of the camp, nicknamed the “Champs de Elysees” with only a slight dose of sarcasm. 

It was important to see this side of the refugee experience as we continue our work in the urban community.  The media often overlooks the fact that the majority of refugees, after being sent from the Syrian border to the camp, choose to leave. They leave because at Za’atri, they live by handouts. They live crammed next to their neighbors in pre-fabricated houses (only recently converted from tents) with little to do but look out into the desert and reminisce about their lives in Syria. Even with the robust market they have built and various U.N. programs, the refugees are just waiting to return.

But once outside of the camps, there is little support for these refugees and they often become the most vulnerable.  They are unable to work legally, face escalating rent prices, and don’t have the basic suite of services offered in the camp.  When we told the aid workers we met at Za’atri about our organization, they agreed that these are the refugees that need our help the most. 

The programs that we are supporting through The Syria Fund – providing access to education and distributing material goods – significantly reduce the pressure that families face and save them from impossible decisions like returning to war-torn Syria or taking their chances on a smuggler’s boat to Greece.​ 

We spent another day visiting classrooms full of young Syrian kids.  We met children who have come to Jordan from Dara'a (in southern Syria), Damascus, Homs (central Syria), Palmyra (eastern Syria), and many other cities and towns throughout the country.  In the face of so much tragedy, it is uplifting to meet students who are excited to learn, instructors excited to teach, and parents proud that their children are back in school where they belong.  We hope you enjoy this video of young students singing in a classroom in Azraq.

Tomorrow, we're headed to Za'atari, the main refugee camp in Jordan.  UNHCR is organizing a visit so we can learn more about programs offered to refugees there.  Looking forward to sharing what we learn during our time there.