A little red love heart on the front door

Rama in the centre for women and children in Gaziantep, Turkey where she lives with her mother and two sisters
Monday, August 22, 2016

Rama’s face lit up when she talked about her love of school in Syria. “I liked maths at school. My teacher used to say I was so smart. Her name was Amina. I miss everything about my teacher. Sometimes she would braid my hair.”

Rama, 10, her mother and her two little sisters, aged 7 and 3, fled Syria four months ago after a bomb hit their neighbour’s house in an area outside of Aleppo. “I was so afraid for my children. My husband died in the war two and a half years ago so it was just my children and me in the house when the bomb hit.

“After that we tried to escape to Turkey. We couldn’t cross the border the first time but then we tried again and we crossed,” shared Rama’s mum, Banan, 30. She went on to recount Rama’s fears on the journey to Turkey, “I want my dad, if he was here I wouldn’t feel scared.”

Banan and her daughters now live in a centre for women and children close to central Gaziantep in south eastern Turkey.

Photo: Mum Banan, 30, with daughters Rama, 10 (left), Leen, 3 and Aisha, 7 (right) in the centre for women and children in Gaziantep, Turkey where they live along with other Syrian refugee women and children. Photo: Suzy Sainovski/World Vision

 

Alaa, a volunteer, manages five centres for women and children in Turkey, including the one Banan and her daughters live in, that provide accommodation, informal education and livelihood training for female-headed Syrian households. “We used to support families in need in Syria before the conflict started but the need really increased after it began,” shared Alaa.

Photo: Leen, 3, in the bedroom she shares with her sisters in the centre for Syrian refugee women and children. Photo: Suzy Sainovski/World Vision

 

Most of the school-aged children living in the centre are at school but as Rama and the rest of her family fled Syria part-way through the school year, she isn’t currently enrolled. The plan is for Rama to resume school at the beginning of the next school year in Turkey. “I want to be a hairdresser when I grow up,” enthused Rama.

Rama shared that she likes drawing and went to her room to retrieve a drawing she’d done a few days earlier. She returned to the large, sparsely furnished living room with paint peeling off the walls in parts, shared by a few Syrian families, with a drawing similar to the kind many children create. A house with a steep gabled roof, a chimney, a tree and green grass in the front yard and a blue sky filled with fluffy clouds and the sun peeping through. Rama had drawn had a little, red, love heart on the front door. I asked if it was her house back in Syria and she replied, “No, this house is from my imagination, my house in Syria was much bigger,” she motioned raising her arm up.

When asked about her biggest hope, Rama replied, “It’s my dream that the bombs in Syria stop.” 

Photo: Rama, 10, with her drawing of a house. Photo: Suzy Sainovski/World Vision