no one leaves home unlesshome is the mouth of a sharkyou only run for the borderwhen you see the whole city running as well… no one puts their children in a boatunless the water is safer than the land… no one chooses refugee campsor strip searches where yourbody is left...
As a doctor, I have trained to serve my fellow human beings. There have been few experiences that have touched me as much as volunteering on a medical mission to Jordan with the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). As a dermatologist, I knew my services were needed. Refugees did not...
June 2020. What a strange time. It has never been like this before. The world seems to be upside down. One year ago, I was preparing for another medical mission to Jordan with SAMS. Nobody at that time could have imagined what all we would experience over the last few...
I started off as an assistant to surgery at the highest ranking hospital in Jordan. The next day, I was a dental assistant. The following day, I assisted a doctor in carrying medical supplies to her car. As an interpreter and translator for SAMS’ humanitarian medical missions, I was never...
The Syrian crisis is so overwhelmingly large, so unfortunately universal throughout the history of mankind, yet so personal. Witnessing refugee life in Jordan was unimaginable to me, in a setting so distant, yet so strangely familiar once I realized that families are families, dreams are dreams, and that we are...
A key component of SAMS’ psychosocial support (PSS) programming is its educational workshops, which raise public awareness on a variety of mental health issues and how they intersect with social and interpersonal dynamics within a community. For many beneficiaries who attend these programs, what they learn can help them to...
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is an annual international campaign to raise public awareness and call for the prevention and elimination of all forms of GBV. The theme of this year’s campaign is “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands Against Rape.” As part of this joint...
One of the main challenges in psychosocial support provision and increasing its access among refugee populations is the ability to seek out cases that require special care and attention. In a recent field survey we conducted in Jordan, we discovered a number of cases located in areas that are difficult...
The humanitarian situation in northwest Syria remains dire. Since the latest escalation of violence began on April 26th, 2019, at least 600,000 civilians have been displaced, many of whom have already been forced to relocate multiple times. Over 1,000 civilians have been killed, many of whom were women and children....
I stood in clinic examining an 8 year old boy with bacterial tonsillitis. My focus was on the back of his throat when I heard the desperate screams emerge from the waiting room. I tried to ignore them at first. But they were piercing shrieks and they weren’t going to...
There have been a lot of conversations around refugees, everywhere in the world. We’ve heard heated debates and discussions with a sense of panic. These rhetoric have been based on fearmongering, fueled with xenophobic ideas and social profiling. Let’s all “change places“ and put ourselves in the situation of refugees,...
While many emergency and humanitarian services look to provide primary care for refugees, very few include aspects essential to women’s health. Conflicts often disrupt access to essential services, and prolonged emergencies further weaken a country’s health system. In times of conflict, women disproportionately suffer the effects of disrupted health systems,...
