Children, let's go home!

Envision this, it’s a long day, you’ve been up since morning, working, trying to secure a living for your family of five. Your work shift ended, you collect your things and prepare to head home. That’s when your muscle memory kicks in, you’re too tired to think, your feet lead you home, and your mind is absent but your heart knows the way. You trust your gut and just like that, you’re home.

It’s that simple, isn’t it?

No, it's not. For Lana* and her family, it's everything but simple. Making a living isn’t simple, relying on muscle memory isn’t easy and letting your gut lead you home isn’t feasible because there is no home.

Lana, her husband of 52 and four children know that home is a notion related to people, not a place. Home is where family is. It's not walls nor items because they might lose that, as it happened already.

Five years ago, the family was forced to leave their home in eastern Syria after fighting broke out, making it unsafe and unbearable to live there anymore. Unfortunately, another 7 million people don’t know what a home means. They all packed a few of their belongings and marched to the north, thinking they would find home there. Little did they know that they had been misled by threads of hope only to reside in a tent made of nylon. These tents are freezing in winters and boiling in summers. And that's not all, rainwater often seeps through a crack and washes away their peace.

"Although the father works as a worker on the construction, he earns a little money, which is not even close to the amount that would be enough to cover basic needs," Lana says. She also adds, “I have two twins who suffer from a mental disability from birth causing limitations with movements as well. We can't seek medical care from the free of charge centres because they are located too far”. All of these challenges disturb Lana's mind as she wonders what life could be like.

What would it be if we gathered under a solid roof with running water and a warm home?

One day, a house rehabilitation and construction project implemented by World Vision Syria Response’s Partner, Takaful Al Sham, announced an initiative to provide homes to people in need. Lana was interested and asked around. 

When she got some details, she applied to participate in an initiative hoping that that agony would stop, “we lived in a camp lacking the most basic living standards, with no water. Even when water was provided, it wasn’t clean causing children to develop ailments and require medical intervention. Having access to clean water was a dream to us,” she recalled.

While Lana was worried whether she will be among the lucky applicants, a knock on the tent brought the good news. Lana and her family will have a home along with 200 families.

“After five years of waiting I have a front door. I will never forget the moment they [World Vision Syria Response Partner] told me I am part of the project,” she shares. Lana has been displaced for at least five years and since then wished to go back home and open the water faucet just like she was doing back at her home”.

Now, Lana’s home is equipped with a sewage network, has running water and contains three rooms. The constructors kept in  mind her twin children's special needs. She also benefits from the solid waste management in the camp and rehabilitated roads and water tanks.

Providing these services to more than 950 people wouldn’t have been feasible without the support of GIRO ll. “Our lives are more stable now, and having running water is what makes me the most delight! We suffered for long years to access water. Now, I just open the faucet,” Lana ends.

*Names are changed to protect identity.