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Aida and Majeeda: Thoughts from the Azraq Refugee Camp

2016-03-08 · documentary visit · John · 4:12 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, heavy topic, recurring series, on location

Back from northern Jordan with UNHCR, John marks International Women's Day by telling the story of Syrian sisters Aida (10) and Majeeda (12), newly arrived at the Azraq camp and longing above all for school, and argues that refugees are not a lost generation: we must support UNHCR and fight their dehumanization.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; back from northern Jordan with UNHCR; more refugee stories to come

  • ★★ John is just back from a trip to northern Jordan with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. — 00:00:01
  • ★★ John says 635,000 Syrian refugees currently live in Jordan, a few of whom he got to know. — 00:00:05
  • ★★ John says he will share several of these refugees' stories in the coming weeks. — 00:00:09

00:00:12 — Aida and Majeeda: arrival at Azraq, registration, the wish for school, losses, and their ordinary lives

  • ★★★ For International Women's Day John focuses on sisters Majeeda (12) and Aida (10), who reached the Azraq camp the day before he met them after more than four months in limbo at the border. — 00:00:12
  • ★★ John relays that the girls' father, Abu Majed, described the border as 'cold, hunger and constant thirst', and that the family registered in the camp that morning, from iris scans to finding a shelter. — 00:00:28
  • ★★★ Asked about their most urgent needs, the girls' parents said only that they wanted the children in school, a theme among almost every refugee John met. — 00:00:43 · education
  • ★★ The day before, in the Zaatari camp, John met the Tiger Group, where young women mentor girls; asked what they wanted most, Aryam and Farah immediately answered 'to learn'. — 00:00:52 · education
  • ★★ Nahid, a mother of young children who volunteers as a teacher, told John she wants her children to have a good education. — 00:01:03 · education
  • ★★ John says Syria used to be a well-educated nation, but the civil war has changed that. — 00:01:10
  • ★★ Aida, only five when the war began, has never been to school and Majeeda has been out of school for years; asked what she wanted now she was safe, Aida said not food or rest but 'We need to study.' — 00:01:14
  • ★★ John says camp schools are underfunded, so classes meet only half of each day and a primary classroom sometimes holds over 75 students. — 00:01:28 · education
  • ★★ For the past four months the children walked 10 km almost every day to find firewood at the border, and before that moved around Syria for years to stay safe. — 00:01:40
  • ★★★ Asked whether she had lost friends in the war, Aida began to cry; John felt terrible asking but wants viewers to know there should be another sister here. — 00:01:51
  • ★★★ John insists Aida and Majeeda have rich, complex lives that aren't mere tragedies: warm kids who joked, played with their little brothers and taught him a Syrian hide-and-seek. — 00:02:07 · perspective-taking
  • ★★★ Through interpreter Nida, Aida's message to American children her age was that they just want to go to school and to have a life. — 00:02:25

00:02:34 — Obstacles: UNHCR underfunding, work ban in Jordan, unpaid work, children pulled from school, the 'lost generation'

  • ★★★ John says this small ask is hard to deliver: UNHCR remains critically underfunded, and Syrian refugees may not legally work in Jordan, where unemployment was already high before the crisis. — 00:02:34
  • ★★ John says the time Syrian refugees need for unpaid work such as cooking and cleaning has risen dramatically, and that work, as elsewhere, falls disproportionately on women. — 00:02:56
  • ★★ Children are often pulled from school for chores or paid work, which shortens their schooling and narrows their careers; this is what is meant by a 'lost generation' of Syrian youth. — 00:03:05 · education

00:03:19 — They are not lost: help them, support UNHCR and fight dehumanization; sign-off

  • ★★★ John rejects 'lost': we know where they are (Azraq, the border, Germany, Sweden, Lebanon, Turkey and above all Syria), and we must help them get the nutrition, shelter and education to rebuild their country. — 00:03:19
  • ★★★ John says investing in girls like Aida and Majeeda isn't just good for them but vital for all of us. — 00:03:38
  • ★★★ John says we can help by supporting UNHCR's critical, underfunded mission for refugees worldwide, and by acknowledging refugees' full humanity. — 00:03:43

  • ★★★ No one can have a life when the world treats them as other or less valuable; John says we must fight that dehumanization, because seeing others' humanity lets us glimpse our own. — 00:03:55 · othering

    “to see the humanity in others is to glimpse it within ourselves”

In the description and comments

  • ★ John thanks Howaida Abdoulahad for help with interpreting after he got back home. — video description
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to join him in signing a ONE letter asking world leaders to prioritize nutrition funding and economic opportunities for girls and women worldwide. — video description
  • ★★ John points viewers to UNHCR's page for photos from his trip and more about the agency, where they can also sign up for its newsletter. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Aida (refugee interviewee, mentioned from 2016) · Azraq refugee camp · dehumanization · education · Jordan · Majeeda · refugee · UNHCR

Also: People: Nahid

Concepts: othering · perspective-taking · unpaid work

Places: Germany · Lebanon · Sweden · Syria · Turkey · Zaatari refugee camp

Events: International Women's Day · Syrian civil war

Only in the description or credits: Howaida Abdoulahad · ONE Campaign · Rosianna Halse Rojas · Thoughts from Places

Also centred on Azraq refugee camp: The Extraordinary Story of Hussam: Teenager, Writer, and Syrian Refugee

Also centred on dehumanization: An Army of Mindless Drones · What Does It Mean to Be Human? · Zaatari: Thoughts from a Refugee Camp · The Psychology of Package Thieves · Uncertain and Afraid · Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways)

Also centred on refugee: Volunteering (In Your Pants) · THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2013 IS UPON US! · Understanding the Refugee Crisis in Europe, Syria, and around the World · The Refugee Crises: Project for Awesome 2015 · The Extraordinary Story of Hussam: Teenager, Writer, and Syrian Refugee · Zaatari: Thoughts from a Refugee Camp

Also centred on UNHCR: Syria in Five Minutes · The Refugee Crises: Project for Awesome 2015

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