By Mary Kate MacIsaac, Communications Coordinator, Regional Syria Response, CARE International
After she fled Syria to southern Turkey, Ayat, 18, a student and aspiring journalist, found an opportunity to give back to her community through CARE's information volunteer program, funded by the European Union. (Photo credit: Khaled Mostafa/CARE)
Growing up, Ayat had much in common with her father, strong opinions and a desire to share them. Having just completed her final year of high school, she hopes to attend university – but with a lack of funding, it remains only a dream.
“I want to be a journalist. I’d write about people’s suffering. I’d write about poverty and injustice everywhere, anywhere – even violence against women. There’s a lot of it, and it’s increasing. We hear about it, but most families don’t want to intervene.”
Ayat says it’s because of her own experience that she aspires to share these stories. “It’s because of the injustices I have seen in Syria that I want these voices to be heard!”
The teenager saw these issues firsthand when she and her brother Mohammad were CARE information volunteers, meeting with Syrian families, and sharing on topics including gender-based violence, early marriage, family planning, and psychosocial health.
“It’s important to understand and speak to perspectives on all sides,” Ayat says. “We speak with the husband, we ask him to work on being more patient, to try to avoid reaching a point where he will hurt her or the children. It’s forbidden to hit women, but some of these men have lost their morals.”
The drastic changes, and the multitude of challenges families face, from the death of family members, a loss of income, and changing gender roles, are psychological stressors.
Domestic violence isn’t new, Ayat admits. “It existed in the culture even before the war, but not to the same extent. Because of pressures from the war, we are seeing women and children treated in a way that is not just. Men come home, and because they are stressed, they may react violently to the smallest things – a misbehaving child, for example.”
These issues are real for many families in the community. Ayat’s family is not immune to the stress – with her father immobilized by a stroke, and her brother unable to find work.
“We’re living on borrowed money. Some days it feels like we’re ruined,” she says.
Nagham, 14, is Ayat’s younger sister. This fall she entered ninth grade. She sits quietly observing the conversation. When asked her opinion, she shrugs and throws her hands into the air. “What should I do?”
Ayat, with sister, Nagham, 14, who dreams of becoming a lawyer and moving to Europe. (Photo credit: Khaled Mostafa/CARE)
Like her sister, she refuses to stop dreaming though. “I want to be a lawyer, perhaps move to France, if I can’t return to Syria.”
Ayat remembers their home. “It’s the house I was born in and where I lived my childhood. And we left it, just like that. We fled to Latakia. And that house was destroyed. Then we came to Turkey.”
“My best memory from home – before we fled – was our whole family gathering together every Friday. Eating and being together. I just hope I can have this feeling again one day.”
CARE’s information volunteer program, funded by the European Union through its Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO) has trained over 100 volunteers since beginning in December 2014, and has included over 7,000 Syrians, educating families through protection activities in their respective communities in southern Turkey.
Read more about CARE's work in Syria here