Watch the full interview here.
Nousha Kabawat is the founder and executive director of Project Amal ou Salam. In 2013, she founded the organisation, which works with refugee children in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Its work aims to empower the future leaders of Syria through education, intervention, and trauma-based care, and it has given over 7,000 Syrian children educational opportunities.
In June, Nousha joined our Pulse Community Session to discuss the barriers to education that refugee children and those living in conflict zones face and how Project Amal ou Salam is bridging the gap so that these children do not become "the lost generation".
We have all felt the effects on our mental health in some form as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To add to this, refugee children are also traumatised from witnessing the horrors of war and having to leave their homes to seek safety. They face discrimination in host countries, often falling through the education system, and are further marginalised by being told that they are a burden to the community. Accordingly, Nousha and Project Amal ou Salam advocate for their rights and the importance of investing in children’s mental health, so that children do not grow up to be resentful and hopeless but rather leaders of the community.
With future leaders in the making, we all have a part to play to ensure that they can access education so that young people obtain a balanced and holistic view of the world and understand that they can shape a better future, one free of conflict and hate. This starts with understanding the issues from the perspectives of those on the ground—what they need and how we can collectively ensure the right to education is accessible to all children regardless of background or circumstance.
Catch the rest of the session here.
Napassawan is currently a paralegal in London. She has an LLB from Swansea University and an LLM LPC from BPP University in Cambridge. She is interested in promoting human rights injustices and bringing them into the public domain, with a particular focus on children due to their vulnerable status.