Syrian children’s letters to world leaders

The Young Journalists’ Club, run by Lebanese humanitarian organisation Beyond, gives Syrian refugee children an opportunity simultaneously to raise awareness about their situation and the problems they face, and to express themselves and deal emotionally with issues of trauma, fear and anger.

Last month members of the Club wrote letters to world leaders, which Theirworld was able to take to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Here are some of their letters.

Eastern or Western — Waed al Zhouri, 15.

To Omran Daqneesh, the five-year-old Syrian boy who became the face of Aleppo after images of him shocked and silent in the back of an ambulance flooded the world.

Oh Omran! The dust on your face makes the world feel embarrassed.

I will give you a Nobel Prize, Omran, because of you I discovered the fakeness of the human conscience.

I will give you an Oscar for the best heroic role.

But one question for that conscience.

Omran is an eastern child, and you just denouncing and sympathising while sitting on a comfortable couch.

What if Omran was a western child?

Would your conscience be moved? Or would you just denounce the act?

Will you go and swab the blood from Omran’s face? Or will you just watch the clip over youtube?

Will you stop the war? Or cover yourself from the shrapnel of your wars in the world?

Eastern or Western, a child is a child. Please understand that.

Waed says ‘I chose to wrote a letter to Omran, the boy who everyone saw on television covered in dust. He was under the rubble for two days. His fingers were cut. I wanted to write to him because I was amazed by his courage, the strength and courage of a small child.’

Waed has been in Lebanon three years. She does not go to school but loves the Beyond Young Journalists’ Club, through which she wrote this letter. She says ‘When I think about my letter being read out in the UN, I feel like I just want people to listen. I just want my message to be heard.’

My strength is my happiness — by Houssein Ibrahim, 13

My strength is my happiness.

The countries I love are called Syria and Lebanon.

The tent is all I have and all I am now.

I have changed my pain to happiness and I left all my sadness.

I will make of my childhood a paradise and my life trees and colours.

I drew a smile on my face and I’m full of hope.

I miss my country and I miss my friends.

When is the return? Answer me!

I will return at any price.

The youngest of five children, Houssein has been in Lebanon five years, almost since the very start of the crisis. He is in the sixth grade in school.

He says ‘I love the journalists club because it helped me to express myself and make myself heard to the whole world.’

Isn’t five years enough? — Nour Matar, 14.

Every day we hear on television a lot of news concerning coming back to Syria but nothing is accomplished yet.

We got bored of counting the days, the weeks, the months.

Five years, isn’t this enough for you?

Our life of being refugees is bitter every day.

The politicians are discussing and arguing, sitting on their chairs, comfortable. They send us small donations that wouldn’t feed a family for a week.

We got bored of counting, five years and I don’t know what will be next.

We got bored of this hope that never comes, our lives become our tents.

Where is our privacy? Our future? What happened in our country?

The happiness was stolen from us, what do you want from our innocence and our childhood?

We left our home. And I still have some innocence and dignity in my life. Are you waiting till I lose it too?

We will go back one day when the counting stops.

We will go back even if we get tired of counting.

We will go back. We will not get tired of the counting and the hoping.

Nour has been in Lebanon four years. She says ‘The idea for what I wanted to talk about in my letter came from daily life in the camp. All our parents sit together and talk politics. For five years I have been hearing the same talk, but nothing changes. When I think that my letter will be heard at the UN in New York, it makes me think that they know nothing about our lives and now I’m telling them directly, live from the camp, about our problems here. The most important thing is for them to know what is going on.’