From trauma to creativity

“I was unable to speak to anyone for four months when we first fled to Jordan, not even to my own family,” says Aya, a 17-year-old Syrian girl and one of 22 Syrian and Iraqi girls and boys rehearsing Wa Yabqa Al Amal, a play which means “Hope Remains”. 

The children wrote the play themselves, designed and decorated the stage, and will be performing it together. The play is about how much the refugee children miss their homelands and how important it is for the children to attend school to further their education. 

“Many bombings occurred near to where we lived and a lot of girls were kidnapped, then our house was bombed. My parents were afraid for my sisters, brothers and myself, so we had to flee from Syria to Jordan about two years ago,” says Aya. 

“Nothing is more horrible than war. When we arrived in Jordan I had lost trust in everyone. But last summer I took part in activities organised by CARE during the holidays and on weekends. I learned how to play the organ, I learned computer skills, and now I am participating in this play that we all wrote and directed together.” 

“Aya used to be passive, distracted and anti-social,” explains Mohammed Al A’adam, a psycho-social support specialist, who worked with the children involved in the play. 

“On the first day her mother accompanied her to our first meeting and told me how introverted she had become. However, after working together, Aya has become more social and creative and full of ideas we used for the play.” 

“My family says I have changed a lot since I started these activities,” says Aya. “Now I laugh, I tell jokes, I enjoy my time with everyone. All those things that left my personality for a while are slowly coming back.” 

Aya wants to practice what she learned in her new life to contribute to the process of rebuilding her country to heal the scars. 

“I want to become an actress or a radio presenter when I go back to Syria,” says Aya.

Names have been changed to protect the identity of the refugees.

This article was contributed by CARE, one of the humanitarian agencies participating in the “Standing Together” campaign in an expression of solidarity between refugee and host community, led by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, on the occasion of World Refugee Day.