VOICES
HELP FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES
By Asma Moubarak
I’m a senior at FIHS and I’m a member of the Students Government. This year Student Government worked on a big project about the War in Syria and trying to help Syrian Refugees.
Syria is a country in the Middle East. In 2010, many countries in the Arab World started to protest against dictatorship and Syria was one of the countries where people protested against the President Bashar Al Assad. Small peaceful protests started on January 26, 2011 in Syria and it turned to a civil war. The war has affected many Syrian people and crimes and violence are being committed on a mass scale forcing half the population to move from Syria to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq as refugees.
Syrian refugees live with great difficulty outside their homeland, so in our first meeting, the Student Government welcomed the idea to start raising awareness of the problem and to try and help the Syrian Refugees. The first step we did was to get educated first about the situation. Next we start to brainstorm ideas how we can help. We decided that we wanted to raise money for the refugees, and after researching many organizations we found The International Rescue Committee. This organization works to “respond to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.”
This project took from us many days to prepare for it, in the beginning we created questions to ask people about Syria and what is going on there, I was surprised that many people knew a little about it. I thought only few people we be able to answer my questions but the reaction was totally different. Later, I found that our teachers had talked about it with the student and I felt more proud because I am in this school.
After interviewing students and teachers we started to make a video and prepare for the presentation. The purpose of the presentation was to raise awareness and fundraise for the Syrian refugees. We then came up with having a Movie Night to get more donations, and it was very successful as we were able to a lot of money for the refugees.
Personally, I participated in this project because it is so important and I can feel what the Syrian people struggling with. When I was in Yemen I saw many Syrian refugees trying to live at the same life they used to do, it was very difficult for them.
As a final part of our project, the Student Government was able to visit The United Nations and also hosted a presentation by the International Rescue Committee in our school. All of this made me think moure about my Arab World and how I can help with all the problems they are facing and all around our world. If you are also interested in learning about helping people around the world and in our community, come join the FIHS Student Government!