Lebanese singer Sandy Chamoun performs with her band at an arts festival in the Shatila refguee camp. Photo: UNDP Lebanon. “Even though she is in pain, she’s still dancing!” Ma’ammar El Jasem says, standing proudly next to his creation: a ballerina wrapped in metal wires. At such a young age, the 13-year-old Syrian sculptor may
By: Gisella Lomax, UNHCR | 18 January 2017 Yusra Mardini, the Syrian swimmer who inspired the world at last summer’s Rio Olympic Games, has made an impassioned appeal to global leaders in Davos to ensure vulnerable refugees like her are given more than basic support. “With food for our stomachs, refugees can survive. But only
It is Wednesday morning in the Haifa School Collective Centre, an UNRWA shelter located in Damascus which currently houses 212 displaced Palestine refugee families, comprising 325 individuals (as of October 2016). A group of young Palestine refugee boys and girls gather in a corner of the schoolyard. Mohammad, a 32-year-old UNRWA volunteer, greets everyone who
This autumn, Palestine refugee students in five schools in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon will be paired to explore and advocate for the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 ‘Quality education’ with their peers in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America through the ‘My Voice-My School’ project, made possible with
From UN Habitat Kalobeyei (Kenya) 31 August 2016 - UN-Habitat is working in agreement with the County Government, UNHCR and the local community to support planning for integrated refugees and host communities and developing a spatial plan for the Kalobeyei New Settlement that will be sustainable, inclusive and resilient. UN-Habitat is working on the spatial planning
From UNHCR RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – The nightmares have gone. But the memories remain. Yolande Mabika remembers running for her life when rebels attacked her home in Bukavu, in eastern Congo, more than 20 years ago. She was eight. That was the last time she saw her family. They had scattered in other directions. Fresh
From UNHCR In the four years since they fled from Hama to Jordan, 22-year-old Syrian refugee Khaled has been the sole wage earner for his family of eight. With no valid work permit for his farm-laboring job, Khaled has lived with the ever-present fear that he would be caught and his family's financial lifeline severed.
From UNESCO Syrian students are celebrating the opening of a new secondary school built by UNESCO in Basirma refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Roj Awa Secondary School will be open to multiple shifts, allowing more than 500 students to access secondary schooling. The ceremony, attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education
UNHCR Shehab, a 22-year-old Syrian student, poses proudly in front of a statue of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, at the entrance to Haceteppe University in Ankara. A refugee from the city of Aleppo, he is in the second year of a health sciences degree course and is the recipient of a German-funded
From UNICEF Iraq Though he’s only 15 years old, school is a distant memory for Mohammed. He and his five siblings haven’t been in a classroom since they fled Kobani, Syria, three years ago and came to the Kurdistan region of Iraq. To help support his family, Mohammed now works full-time in an industrial area
