In March this year, I was appointed celebrity partner of the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP), the world’s largest humanitarian organisation fighting hunger, giving me a role to play in increasing awareness and raising funds. This also gave me the chance to visit the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan last month. This is where millions of Syrian refugees have been left, displaced, dislodged and stripped of everything they know. They are the unfortunate victims of the winds of political ill will; eyewitnesses of the ravage of war and the merciless killing of family members. Nothing do they know of world politics, all they want to know is who is on their side, and will they ever go back home.
2.5 million people have travelled for days and days, dodging terror, attack and death itself, crossing the Syrian border with nothing but the clothes on their back. And half of them are children. They have lost their families, their homes and their livelihood. They are terrorised with the past and terrified of the future. Their stories were very hard to hear.
A little girl all of nine years saw her parents being killed. She is now mother to her infant brother. A teenage boy carried his mother for miles begging for her life, yet she died in his arms. Another ten-year-old boy dreams of his father every night, and remembers the bedtime stories he would tell them. They all had to grow up too fast, with horrific memories.
At Za’atari Camp, thousands of refugees are housed in tents, as comfortably as possible despite difficult living conditions like the blistering summers and bitter cold winters. UNWFP plays a big role in providing them basic food to eat. Every morning starts with the distribution of bread, four pieces per person per day. Food vouchers worth 10 JD (approximately Dh54) are also distributed for food supplies only, and that must last them two weeks.
With thousands of school-aged refugee children, providing education services at the camp poses a challenge. WFP offers children fortified date bars as an incentive for their families to send them to school.
Back home in Dubai, I revisit these images a million times in my head. It feels like a different world out there. But the harsh truth is that these refugee camps are very much a part of our world, and the numbers are growing. I can visualise the twinkling eyes of the boy who missed his father’s bedtime stories, and the dusty hair of the little girl who looks after her baby brother. And countless other stories that I heard, all speaking of extreme courage and unimaginable resilience. If anyone can help, it is we — the ‘privileged’ ones. Write to me on Facebook or connect with wfp.org if you wish to make a difference.
