When social media isn’t all bad
By Team Mohammed
It’s a commonly held opinion these days that Facebook is a waste of time. It’s blamed for the fake news circulating around the recent U.S. elections. It’s also a source of procrastination — a place where you can spend hours “trolling” old high-school friends or snooping on an ex. Fortunately, it can also bring people across the world together to do something very real and good. In this case, it did that for a little boy named Mohammed.
Mohammed is a 7-year-old boy with a very rare genetic condition that makes him look decades older. He is also a Syrian refugee. Like millions of other Syrians, Mohammed’s family fled the country to escape the violence and shortage of basic necessities. He and his family are now staying in a remote town near Batman, Turkey.
We, the authors of this post, are a team of women who were moved to help Mohammed after viewing the AJ+ video depicting his plight. We are driven by a desire to move beyond passive emotional reactions and toward active contribution and change.
AJ+ first covered Mohammed’s story in a video titled Young Boy Trapped in Old Man’s Body. After seeing the video, Nancy, who lives in Cambridge, MA, shared it on Facebook with a short note: “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a stronger urge to hug someone as I do this beautiful boy.”
What happened next should probably become the definition of “global village.” Nancy’s friends responded — messaging her, commenting and sharing the post, all wanting to help Mohammed. That energy was soon harnessed through a chain in Facebook Messenger, “Helping Mohammed.” Was there a way to speak directly to the family? Did they have specific needs? Was Mohammed receiving medical treatment?
With so many unknowns, the first order of business was to find Mohammed and his family.
AJ+ producers and staff were supportive of the “Helping Mohammed” team; they responded to inquiries and provided the team with a contact.
Janan, a friend of Nancy’s, volunteered to call the family on behalf of the group. Mohammed’s family shared a mobile phone with his grandfather, and he was in another town when Janan initially reached out.
“The morning I made the first attempt to reach the family, I was nervous,” Janan said. “I also felt, as I prepared for the phone call, how motherhood has changed me in the last two years. I now felt I had a bond with Mohammed’s mother, Sherine … that, although I didn’t know her, we would be able to speak about her son, mother to mother. I felt an immense need to comfort her and reassure her that other women out there felt her concern and were eager to help.”
Janan first spoke to the child’s grandfather, Hajj Ramadan, and quickly learned the family’s situation was more difficult than they had imagined. Mohammed’s family did not have their own phone. They did not have a stable living situation. They could barely afford rent.
Janan continued trying to reach Hajj Ramadan while he was with the rest of the family. After three attempts, she succeeded.
“I thought I would ask to speak to the child’s mother, but before I could ask for it, he said, ‘Here is Mohammed!’ and called him to the phone,” Janan said. “I was a bit taken aback. I had not prepared myself to speak to Mohammed. What could I possibly say to him?”
Before she could think, Mohammed was on the phone.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello, habibi,” Janan replied. “How are you? We saw you on video! You know, I have a child too, and it would be so much fun if you could play together! I see you are great at playing ball, mashallah! That’s amazing!”
Then she blurted out, “We love you!”
After speaking to Mohammed, Janan finally spoke to his mother, Sherine.
Mohammed’s mother seemed relieved to have found someone willing to listen, and shared her pain. She was frustrated that he could not go to school. She was frustrated with people’s lack of empathy for her son. She said the culture there was “mutakhalifa” [backwards] because of how harsh and unsupportive people were about his disease.
She appeared desperate to move elsewhere, where Mohammed could have medical support and a kind, supportive environment.
“One of the most difficult things about the phone call was the end of the conversation,” Janan said. “What are you supposed to say after you have listened to this? You want to promise things, but you want to be very cautious not to promise things you may not be able to deliver. Yet, you want so fervently to be able to reassure her. You wish you were able to say, ‘Everything will be OK.’ But you actually don’t know that that will be the case.”
Janan told Sherine: “We are a group of women in the U.S. who really want to help your family and Mohammed. I can’t make any promises about what exactly will happen. But we will work hard, inshallah, to help in any way we can.”
Despite the difficulties, Mohammed’s family has hope for a better future. They want to move to Germany. Mohammed wants to learn and go back to school–he was ridiculed so much that he stopped attending.
In subsequent phone calls, Janan discovered that Mohammed and his family weren’t able to afford registration for asylum through UNHCR, so they couldn’t move to a place where Mohammed could get proper medical care. In fact, Mohammed has still not been officially diagnosed, and his family has no sense of what to expect for his health moving forward.
Once we found out their specific needs and goals, we decided to organize and prioritize. We quickly realized that raising funds was a necessary first step in stabilizing their living situation, getting Mohammed a tutor, registering them with UNHCR and figuring out a medical plan. How would we collect and distribute funds to the family? What was the best way forward? We sought to find answers to these complex questions as a team.
We also divided up tasks: Rana was entrusted with setting up the LaunchGood page. Hajar, a physician’s assistant, contacted world-renowned progeria experts to consult on Mohammed’s condition and find a doctor to take on his case.
After contacting half a dozen relief organizations, NuDay Syria agreed to help deliver aid to Mohammed and his family and immediately sent representatives to the remote Turkish village where they lived. Others in the group gave suggestions about potential roads forward, and reached out to friends on behalf of the family.
The grassroots campaign we started raised nearly $6,500 for Mohammed so far. With about three weeks left to go in the campaign, our goal of $15,000 seems attainable, and our dream of helping him secure the funds needed to begin his asylum process is now a possible reality. Our team of nine has grown to a team of more than 100 people, and continues to expand with each new donor who contributes.
All of us, from multiple nations, were moved by the plight of a little boy and his family. We were galvanized by a social media platform and a short video, and inspired to reach across oceans to let a group of strangers know they are not strangers at all. We were motivated to let a little lonely boy know he is loved and beautiful, and to let his family know that we see them, and we care about their futures.
For all the ills of social media, this story, at least, is evidence of its healing power too.
This post was written by Janan Delgado, Nancy A. Khalil, Rana Mokhtar, Sparsha Saha and Nadia Salim.
Editors note: Mohammed Abdelmajeed’s story shows the impact a social media story can have. It also demonstrated the worldwide community of AJ+ across different languages. The AJ+ Arabi team found Mohammed’s story and produced the first video in December 2015, with a follow-up in January. Then AJ+ English and AJ+ Español followed suit with their translated versions. About 33 million people viewed and 317,000 people shared Mohammed’s story across languages. The impression he left led to many offers of help. We asked one such group, dubbed “Team Mohammed” to explain the power of his story.
AJ+ Arabi
AJ+ Arabi follow-up
AJ+ Español:
