Syria

"My dream is that Syria will be beautiful again."

The conflict in Syria is old news now. But there’s a human story underneath each of these airstrikes and at the end of each sniper’s barrel. Eleven year old Maryam’s is just one of them.

She’s always dreamed of becoming an Arabic teacher.

“And my other dream is that Syria will be beautiful again.”

It certainly wasn’t when she left. The night before she had been hiding at home in Aleppo with her family – hoping that the planes overhead wouldn’t target their house. They were lucky, but their friends weren’t.

“My next-door neighbour’s house got bombed and they all died. They had small children. I was thinking: why their house and not ours?”

At sunrise Maryam and her family fled. “We couldn’t take anything, we ran to find a bus. We are seven brothers and sisters and I am the eldest.”

They crossed the border into Lebanon where they now live in a tent.

Life there is hard, but Maryam is incredibly resilient and she makes the best of her situation. She attends War Child’s youth group sessions three times a week in one of their Safe Spaces and they've helped enroll her into a local school.

“I am happy there and I have lots of new friends. They are like my brothers and sisters; they’re great. I don’t have many difficulties adjusting. The teacher helps me.”

With your help, kids like Maryam can cope well with trauma that would shatter most adults’ lives. They find it much easier to start a fresh chapter in their stories.

Maryam doesn’t know where most of her friends and family are at the moment. They’re just a memory of the life, and a part of her childhood, that she left behind that day.

“I would love to go home. And I need to get my doll from my room because in the rush to leave I forgot my favorite doll.”

Please HELP children like Maryam find a safe space, DONATE to The Story Campaign.