Surviving an Earthquake isn’t the End of the Story: Qamar’s* Resilience

“I just don’t want anything more than being like other children” Qamar

 is a ten-year-old Syrian girl but what did she go through to say such thing?

The little girl opened her eyes to a country ravaged by war for the past 12 years and so did seven million other children. This left them in a dire need of humanitarian assistance.

Unfortunately, survival mode is all Qamar knows. When her mother began talking about life pre-war, her brain couldn’t fathom a day without feeling afraid. She just sat back and listened.  “We used to live a decent life and my husband provided everything we needed”.

When the war broke out, the family was living in Northern Syria, they never thought the situation would escalate as it did in 2016. A state of forced evacuation was declared. The sky rained rocket instead of merciful rain and sirens blared echoing sounds informing it was time to leave. This meant the family had nothing to stay for. So, they followed suit and the city became a ghost town.

Luckily the family was able to arrive safely in the Northwest and could secure a small room to stay in. However, things were far from perfect, “we lost everything, we lived in a displacement camp, we couldn’t [still can’t] afford food. Sometimes my children sleep feeling hungry,” the mother shares.

Qamar was only five years old at that time and no child should have to go through a traumatising experience. But her father wanted to get his family to safety.

That’s when things began going downhill. The father couldn’t secure a job due to health problems. The mother wasn’t able to support either because the dreadful living conditions in the camp affected her physical and mental health, she was barely able to run errands. Meanwhile, Qamar was witnessing this drastic change without being able to process anything.

This affected her on multiple levels, her body weakened due to lack of food and she later developed a growth deficiency disorder. She shares, “we are in need of many things my parents can’t provide. I just want to grow up healthy just like my friends”.

Just when Qamar was about to catch a breath, the earthquake struck

Normally, a well-built room might withstand the quake but due to its weathering and lack of maintenance it cracked and the ceiling almost fell. The family rushed outside and stayed for nine days, “we spent these nights under the rain out in the cold. My siblings and I clenched around our mother. We couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know what was happening”.

Sadly, the family had nowhere to go so they went back inside. But Qamar couldn’t sleep after that, “I would scream in the middle of the night and my mother would wake me up. I thought I might die like other children who passed away under the rubbles,” she explains.

Seeing their child curling up into a dark space broke her family’s heart. They did their best to get their child back and provide her with the help she needed. So, they headed to World Vision’s protection centre as it is the closest to the displacement camp they live in. After seeing the support it provided for children who were affected by the ongoing war and the earthquake, she felt some relief. Slowly, Qamar began participating in the psychological support sessions along with 600 children. She learned how to understand her emotions and deal with them instead of bottling them up. Qamar began shining as her name entails in Arabic [it means moon], she began creating friends.

At the end of the sessions, Qamar became an improved version of herself, outgoing and more social. She also received a referral from World Vision to a medical centre to follow up on the growth deficiency she suffers from. Qamar and her family are one of many families who also benefitted from the food basket support the project provided. 

Implementing such psychological support projects for children who survived the earthquake is a lifeline. It’s more the overcoming the horrors they witnessed during the quake. These children have been witnessing persecution for the past 12 years. Qamar’s one of the children who received these services and they need to be accessible for other children who need it.

*Name is changed to protect identity.