45 million.
It’s a big number no matter what you’re talking about. But it’s absolutely staggering when it refers to the number of people currently displaced from their homes or countries as a result of violent conflict in their native region. According to a recently released report from the U.N., there are currently 45.2 million refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide — the highest number recorded since 1994.
Such a large number, such widespread suffering, is absolutely unconscionable to me. What does that even mean? Where do all these people go? Why do they leave? Will they ever return home? I can comprehend neither what such a number looks like nor what it means for those affected.
And perhaps that’s why I never do anything. Because it’s just a number. To me, a number is meaningless unless it is tangible and applicable. I need to see what it looks like; I need to gain some context for its impact. Perhaps that’s why I was never all that engaged in my math classes — I was simply being presented with abstract problems for which I had no context and, therefore, I didn’t care.
Now I would never go so far as to say I haven’t cared about the plight of refugees; certainly, I have. But to a large extent, they, too, have remained abstract numbers whose size is difficult to grasp, whose suffering is impossible to comprehend. For years in my work, I have delivered speeches and developed educational materials using numbers to illustrate the magnitude of a problem in the hopes that such staggering numbers will prove so shocking that they compel people to action. But again and again, I am left disappointed as people remain unmoved. Statistics certainly can compel people to action and affect widespread change, but they usually don’t.
Instead, people do. Faces do. Families do. Stories do.
And it is because of people, because of families, that we traveled to Jordan. I’m not usually one to feel compelled to respond to every single terrible event happening in the world, but after months of watching violence envelop and devastate the people of Syria from the comfort of my living room couch, I finally decided enough was enough. Families were fleeing the country by the hundreds of thousands and being displaced within their own borders by the millions. I could no longer stand to sit there doing nothing more than commenting, “That’s so horrible” before returning to my own selfish material pursuits.
I knew that whatever I could offer would not be much compared to how great the need was, but I had to at least try. I tearfully told my husband that I couldn’t stand the thought of reaching the end of my life and thinking back on the suffering people of Syria, asking “Why didn’t I do anything?!”
Al Z’ataari is the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) refugee camp in Jordan. It lies just outside of the town of Mafraq, along the border with Syria, and currently houses close to 150,000 of the 500,000 Syrian refugees living in Jordan. Over half of these refugees have fled Syria within the past six months.
After researching online for a few weeks, I finally found a group of volunteers working out of a home garage turned warehouse in Amman, Jordan, purchasing basic needs supplies and delivering them to the refugees throughout communities in northern Jordan. To make a long story short, within six weeks, we had raised $5,000 to help Syrian refugees living in Jordan and had purchased plane tickets to fly there ourselves to purchase and deliver the supplies.
Suffice it to say, the trip was life-changing. I’ll share in greater detail over the coming weeks about our time visiting Syrian refugees in Jordan, but since today is World Refugee Day and you’re likely to hear countless news stories emphasizing the unfathomable number of refugees around the world today, I felt I could not let the day pass without also introducing you to a few of the real people behind this number.
During our week in Amman, we were graciously hosted by Maher, a 31-year-old refugee from Syria. Although Maher came to Jordan over a year ago, his family remains in their hometown in central Syria and has had to change locations several times to survive. Maher told us of one instance when he discovered the area in which his family was staying was a target and called them immediately begging them to flee. They listened, and within two hours of his call, the apartment they were staying in was leveled. Many young Syrian men who have fled to Jordan are returning to fight. Maher has vowed not to return, saying, “No matter what is being done to us, I cannot bring myself to kill.”
My husband and I posing in front of Al Z’ataari camp with Mohommad, a 17-year-old from Palmyra, who fled to Jordan within the past two months with his mother and six siblings. His father is a truck driver in Sauid Arabia and sends money to support the family, so they are better off than most. They rarely ask for help with anything and hosted us to a delicious meal of chicken and rice for lunch. In the middle of the photo, along the horizon, you can see the white line of the refugee camp. It spans into the distance as far as the eye can see.
A beautiful young girl whose family lives outside of but within sight of the Al Z’ataari camp.
This little boy and his family of ten all live in a tent outside of Mafraq. His foot had a badly infected cut which, without shoes or proper bandages, was impossible to keep clean. When we arrived, he could hardly walk. We gave the family some money to pay for proper medical attention, but one of our fellow volunteers used my travel first-aid kit to apply a new bandage and some anti-biotic ointment to his wound.
These are a few of Youssef’s 8 children. His legs were wounded in the fighting and he is unable to walk and provide for his family. He has been confined to laying on a mattress in his family’s single-room tent, propping himself up with his elbow. You can see him on the left in the background. As part of our fundraising, we purchased and delivered a wheelchair for him. He was extremely grateful and thanked us while we were there, but later, as we drove back to Amman, he had the opportunity to use the wheelchair for the first time. He called our driver in tears, saying “Please thank them once again. I can finally feel the wind and smell the air again!”
Little girls from the city of Homs, the place that inspired us to help with Syrian refugees in the first place. Their father was shot 8 times in the legs and can no longer use them.
This baby boy was born a refugee, just six weeks after his family escaped across the Syrian border into Jordan. His father was shot in the legs 8 times and can no longer use them. As a result, the family is without a financial provider.
This is an incredible family whose story I cannot wait to share. The boy on the left (age 15) is named Ali. He was shot in the head while his family attempted to escape across the Syrian border for the first time. The family was captured and put in prison for three days and mere cotton was placed on his wound. Finally the family made it to Jordan where a generous organization from the UAE contributed the $12,000+ USD for surgery on his brain and skull.
I hope you enjoy getting to know these families, and I hope their stories will compel you to action, as they have with me. Just remember, there are 45.2 million people in this world just like them. How will you respond?
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