A Phenix In Flight

In the 2016 Rio Olympics, athletes from all over the world perched on starting blocks for the women’s 100m butterfly. Even though all were wearing similar suits, swim caps, and goggles, one woman stood out from the rest. Instead of representing her country’s emblem, she swam under a plain white olympic flag. Yursa Mardini is a Syrian refugee that was allowed to compete in the summer games despite the fact she did not have a country. In that moment, the world’s were eyes on her, but for years, this Olympian, this sister, this daughter, this amazing woman who actually swam out of Damascus to keep her life had been reduced to one word: refugee. When asked about the message she would like to share with the world, Yursa said this: “A refugee is a human being like any other.” No surprise, but there are many cultural differences between us and our camp refugees. We eat different foods, we dance different dances, and we speak different languages. But over the past month, I’ve b...

Close your eyes and imagine the worst second hand shop that you've ever been in. Keep imagining. The floor is sticky, the clothes are stained and the smell of stale tobacco is ever-present. Now, imagine you need clothes, but everything is at least three sizes too big for you and has already been picked over by 700 other refugees. You now have a mental picture of what our clothing distribution warehouse is like. We do our best, but like all NGOs, we operate on a razor-thin budget that comes from fundraising and donations. During our clothing distribution, I helped Fahima, a teenage Yazidi girl, find a pair of trousers to take home (...and when I say home, I mean back to camp). She looked a little desperate as she rummaged through the racks and the piles of poorly-sorted clothing. We managed to find a huge pair of hideous, flair jeans from 2002 for her to take. She and I both knew that she would be wearing those too-big trousers indefinitely. That pair of trousers will meet her...