Little wishes from Damascus
By Alma Hassoun
DAMASCUS, Syria – A little boy scribbles something on a small postit note before he meticulously glues it on a bright red apple-shaped paper.
“I wish I could go back home,” the text reads.
Issam*, 8, uses words too big for his age: “I miss my uncle,” he says while quietly colouring the paper-made apple. “He died a while ago.”
Issam also misses his grandmother, aunts and cousins – all of whom recently fled Syria to neighbouring countries due to the ongoing violence.
Issam and his family now live in a school, less than four miles away from the neighbourhood where he was born.
As Syria enters the third year of a relentless conflict, stories like Issam’s have sadly become too common. There are more than 3 million children inside Syria who need for humanitarian assistance, including 2 million who have been displaced from their homes. Since the beginning of the crisis, more than 6,500 children have been killed.
The room is full of children like Issam, most of them under 10 years old. A volunteer from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) offers crayons and pencils to the children and hangs their work on a cardboard wish tree.
Outside the centre, a group of children are planting seeds while others are gliding down a slide.
In another room, children sit on beanbags talking about what they like and dislike about life.
The centre is one of 15 UNICEF supported child friendly spaces, in and around Damascus, where children get together to draw, play, sing and forget, albeit briefly, the horrors of life in a conflict zone.
Four similar centres had to close in the previous months due to increasing violence.
“The conflict in Syria is disrupting community activities and families’ ability to provide emotional support to their children,” said Insaf Nizam,
UNICEF Child Protection Chief in Syria. “We work to provide children with means to help them cope with the stress and anxiety they are going through.”
Fatma, a mother originally from Homs, says that coming to the centre has not just helped her 4-year-old daughter but also helped her cope. “My daughter was always stressed,” she said.
“Now I feel much better when I bring her here. I also get advice on how to help her and my other children deal with their experiences in the parental support sessions.”
But Fatma only has one wish: that things go back to normal for the sake of her children.