According the UNHCR, there are 25.4 million people currently registered as refugees, and over half of them are under the age of 18. These numbers will continue to grow as global conflicts, economic volatility, and climate change force many more to flee their homelands. What can be done to ensure that refugee youth have access to quality mental healthcare, education, and opportunities? How can we better support their integration into communities of resettlement and their re-integration when they return home?
Muzoon Almellehan is an education activist and Unicef Goodwill Ambassador. She fled her homeland in Syria, and sought refuge in Jordan where she advocates for the rights of children to access quality education. Journalist Ray Suarez sat down with Almellehan to hear more about her experience as a refugee and her efforts to ensure educational opportunity for every child.
Ray Suarez: Muzoon, has education always been a big part of your life?
Muzoon Almellehan: Yes, of course. Education is always a very important part of my life, because I believe without education I cannot achieve anything in my life. I cannot reach my dreams.
Suarez: How was your education affected when you had to leave Syria?
Almellehan: My education of course has been affected very much during the war because during the war it wasn’t safe to go to school. Sometimes we couldn’t eat in the classes. It was so dangerous. In addition to this I had to flee my home and find a new and safe place, which was refugee camps in Jordan. At the moment I had to leave my homeland in Syria, I thought “I cannot continue my studies”. So that moment made me a bit sad, because I realized that if I lost my education I would lose everything in my life, and I had to continue my studies at the camps in Jordan.
Suarez: In what level were you, when you left school? What grade?
Almellehan: I was in grade 9. It was actually very important year in Syria because we pass very important exams which allow us to continue our secondary education, and to choose in which direction we want to go: if it is science, or literature, and we do grade 9 two years in order to go to university.
Suarez: Was there a long time in which you weren’t going to school?
Almellehan: I actually had to leave Syria. I was studying in Syria when I left Syria, but in the camps it’s self I had to wait just a month. I was lucky because I though that maybe I have to wait a long time, but I was so lucky that I catched up with my education very quickly. Thankfully I had the Jordanian curriculum that the other Jordanians receive. We didn’t have just a general or basic education, which was really great to continue a very normal education in the camps.
Suarez: You are very lucky because a lot of young people who’ve left Syria have had a year or two years of a break and you lose ground.
Almellehan: Yes, that’s true. I was so lucky to continue my education and not lose anything.
Suarez: What’s your favorite subject?
Almellehan: In the past I loved History and Arabic language. They were my favorite, and I love Biology as well. But now I have different interests, to be honest. I study international politics. I really like philosophy, I like politics, and poetry stuff. This kind of literature things. I am in that direction.
Suarez: You stayed in Zaatari in Jordan for 18 months and then you began your work with UNICEF. How did you find each other?
Almellehan: In fact when I first arrived to Zaatari Camp, I was looking for school because my main concern was my education, so I went to school, and I was so glad. But at the same time I saw other children who lost hope and they wasn’t really happy to go to school. Some of them, they wanted to drop off from the school. Just they came to make friends, and then they leave their education, which made me to start my own mission to encourage other children to go to school and to believe in themselves and just to get their education.
During my mission I was speaking to people in the camps. Anywhere and anytime I was telling them about the importance of education. So as UNICEF, their part was to raise awareness about the importance of education. They heard about me. They heard about the influence that I was making on other children. They wanted me to join them through activities after school as volunteer work to go from tent to tent to talk to parents, to talk to children, to encourage them to go back to education. This is how basically started with UNICEF.
Suarez: So it sounds like your appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador was a continuation of things that you were already doing.
Almellehan: Yes, definitely. UNICEF didn’t just appoint me because I am a Syrian refugee, but because I am an activist. UNICEF believed that even after resettling in the United Kingdom, I didn’t just stop. I was keeping and to raise my voice basically. To talk about the challenges that the refugees and the children, general life is. So they believed my appointment as a goodwill ambassador can be a good platform for those children to highlight their challenges through my story, through my thoughts and my belief in the important.
Suarez: You’ve been back to Jordan? How did it feel for you to do that?
Almellehan: Actually, it was so emotional. I was so glad to go back, but that time it was with a huge responsibility. I was thinking when I was traveling from the U.K. to Amman, I was just thinking about my Jordan. I remember the hard journey they had when I went to Jordan, and I had anonymous, basically, future at that time. But when I went back, I felt that now I am coming back stronger.
I am coming back with known fate, with known goal, basically, with a huge responsibility to go and to talk to my fellow sisters and brothers from Syria who are still living in a very difficult situation. So for me, I felt now I had a greater platform, a greater opportunity to help those children, to raise their voices, to give them hope, and to show myself as an example for them to succeed in their lives. Just to be hopeful and to be positive.
Suarez: I’m sure you saw school kids and toured classrooms. How are they doing? Are they making the best of it, in what anyone would understand is a difficult situation?
Almellehan: The children that I met when I went back to Jordan, all of them, they have hope. They are so determined to learn. They told me, “Even though we are away from Syria, and now we sometimes have a lot of difficulties to learn and to get the best opportunities, but we want to go back to Syria to rebuild it one day. We believe in education.” I was so pleased to hear that. To hear positive thoughts and positive ideas, and also a very hopeful future. They think about a very bright life. All of them, they want to go back and to do something.
This is, I think, the main thing why education is so important. Because once we have education, education can guide us to the right path and can give us hope. Not only to ourselves as individuals, but as countries. Because those children that I met, they [inaudible] me, that one day a strong generation can go back to Syria for rebuilding Syria, and make it a beautiful country as it was before.
Suarez: Let’s talk about that rebuilding. You left as a teenager. You’ll be going back as a young woman to a country that many of the buildings are destroyed, the factories, the farms. You’ve really gotta start from the beginning. Are you ready?
Almellehan: Of course I am ready. I believe in the Syrian people, especially the Syrian children. I believe that we are strong enough to rebuild our country. We want us, as the Syrian children to rebuild our country ourselves. I know it is a sad fact to see what is happening in my country. To see the destruction. It is completely destroyed. Not only in the infrastructure level, but also on the level of people.
We had experienced very difficult experiences and we had very difficult circumstances. But I’m sure one day, if we are educated enough, and if we have hope and the hope is still alive, we can go back and rebuild it. I know it is not easy, but it is not impossible.
Suarez: Do you think now that you have been doing what you have been doing for these last several years, that you’ll continue to be an activist? That once you’re able to go home again, that part of your life won’t stop?
Almellehan: Definitely. I don’t want to stop to be an activist. Not only to my country Syria, as I believe there are so many children suffering in the world. Not only the Syrian children. So it is my responsibility as Goodwill Ambassador to UNICEF as a global Goodwill Ambassador. To continue to be an activist to advocate for the rights of every child everywhere to have access to their rights, in particular education. So for me being an activist, it is not a job, it is something comes from my heart. I personally was affected by those disasters. I hope that I will continue, of course. I hope I can help more, as much as I can.
Suarez: Do we have to pay special attention to the education of girls? Do they get the same care, the same attention to their educational needs, as boys do?
Almellehan: This is such a very important question, because I think it is important to focus on girls. Not because education for boys are not important, but because girls are more likely to be deprived from their rights. In general, we ignore the importance of eduction for girls in many societies. If it is from a cultural stance, or maybe from the support stance, we need to highlight the challenges that girls face in depth.
We have to pay (yes, as you mentioned) a higher attention, because girls unfortunately are sometimes ignored. We need to listen to their voices and to give them more opportunities. Because girls as we all know, they raise both boys and girls when they become mothers. If a mother is not educated, I believe that the whole society will not be educated.
Suarez: When you meet girls, as a UNICEF ambassador, are they aware that their educational possibilities are more fragile, that they have to stay in school? Do they understand, the way you do, how important girls’ education is?
Almellehan: I was so pleased, that through my experience, most of the ones that I met, that all of them believe in education.
I can give an example. A very recent trip for me to Chad, in Africa, with UNICEF where I met with a girl. She wanted to be called Hassima to protect her identity. When she was 16, she was kidnapped from her school by Boko Haram. She kept for a few years in sexual harassment and other bad abuse by them. Then she managed escape, and now she has her treatment in Chad by hospital separated by UNICEF.
When I saw her, I saw the suffering, but also I saw the hope. She told me “After having my treatment, I would like to learn”. She told me “I believe that when I go to school, I can go back to life”. Even she told me she wants to learn languages, she wants to communicate with world. She believes in the importance of education and the difference that education can make.
So yes, I believe that girls now, they are more aware and they know their rights very well. That’s why I think this is the first step to increase the number of girls to be able to go to school.
Suarez: In refugee camps, among displaced people, you are missing home. Everything that is familiar in your life has been taken away. Often your own parents are under either tremendous stress or they may not even be with you anymore. Is it hard to go back to school? Is it hard to concentrate? Is it hard to study in these situations?
Almellehan: Yes. Once you leave your home, you leave everything behind. You leave sometimes maybe your parents, maybe your family members, your home that you used to live in, your friends, and everything basically. Even those difficult circumstances can affect us in two ways. Maybe a negative way or positive way.
Negative way if we just give up and think about just the bad things in our lives, then we cannot do anything. Not only learning, we give up on life. Once you give up on yourself and when you think you cannot do anything, basically you don’t only give up education, you give up on everything in your life. Also you can look to the life in a very positive prospective, where you think “I cannot give up. I shouldn’t give up, because what happened to me is not my fault. I shouldn’t lose my rights. I have to stand up. I must get my rights. I must go to school. I must learn.”
If we think just positively about what’s happening to us, even if it is hard, I know it is not something easy to cope with the trauma that you had, or all those difficult circumstances that you experienced. It is not something easy, but also it is not impossible to react positively to the situation, to be stronger than those challenges.
I am myself, when I was in the camp, I had the same challenges that all the people had, but I didn’t give up. I didn’t look to the negative side of my life. That’s why I’m still standing and I’m still advocating. Not only for myself, not only for my country, but for everyone who believes in themselves and who really want to make a better life for them and for others.
Suarez: What do you tell the children that you meet when you meet them? What’s the assignment for you when you arrive as an Ambassador?
Almellehan: Of course, I have so many messages that I have learned personally, through my experience. One of them: not to give up. Just to believe in themselves, to believe that things can get better. I know maybe we have a lot of challenges, but challenges can be defeated if we are strong enough to face those challenges, if we believe that nothing can stay forever. If I have a challenge, this challenge can be overcome if I believe that this challenge can be overcome by me when I am educated or when I believe I have something to give to the world.
I can prove to everyone those challenges are not the end of my story, but I think and I learn from. I tell them just to be hopeful, to believe that as long as you have hope, as long as the hope is alive, we can make a good life for everyone.
Suarez: Tell me about your plans for the near future. You’re in university now. What are you studying? When do you expect to graduate?
Almellehan: I am studying international politics in the U.K., one of the universities in the U.K. I would like to graduate and to finish my studies. Now I am in the first year. I will finish my first year. Two years left and there will graduate, which is something which I am so exited about. I will continue to be an activist, to raise my voice, and to help the children as much as I can in all possible means.
I will try my best to reach children around the world, to represent them, and I hope that I can make a difference. I not only want to be an activist by title or a Goodwill Ambassador by title, but I really want to make a difference as much as I can.
