Preserving childhood

Last week in Za'atari, one of the team who knows the place well, helped me clamber on top of one of the caravans to get wide shots of the camp which has quadrupled in size since this time last year. I squinted into the sunlight, tentatively shifting my body around to see the full white, blue and sandy brown 360 degree view. The rows and rows of dusty tents and caravans house over 120,000 people now, and while there's physical capacity for more, the struggle to provide for everyone - from water and school books to health and psychological care, becomes only more acute. And now the stifling heat of summer is over, and the bitter winter months approach.

Spending 5 days filming and taking photographs with UNICEF allowed a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes. We saw groups of volunteers packing up rucksacks full of school kit; we met young midwives helping mothers feed their newborns; and a young Jordanian psychologist (the only one in the camp) who is helping as many children as she can, come to terms with what they've seen, heard and experienced, and enable them to grasp back what might otherwise be a stolen childhood. Behind every white canvas there is a catalogue of stories, and behind every face, a mire of confusion, frustration and pain.

But despite all this, there are inevitably always tales of hope. And we spent two of the days gathering material for a story about an inspiring young girl of 15 years old, the oldest in the family, who has courageously refused to let her father marry her off, at least until she's finished her education. She gave a very succinct interview and explained her reasons for not wanting to get married: the danger of  bearing children so early; the lack of maturity to deal with sharing life with a man; and the fact that she'd miss out on the rest of her school days. Her mother sat calmly beside her nodding, and in her own interview reaffirmed her daughter's views. Then we went back to their caravan to interview the father - a friendly man with twinkly eyes, who explained that he couldn't go against his daughter's wishes. Though for a manual labourer by trade, who's had no work for 2 years, a marriage of a daughter would have alleviated many a financial burden. Instead, his wife cleans one of the children's play zones in the camp, and the family scrapes a living with this tiny income. 

The girl's name is Anwaar which is the Arabic plural for Nur, meaning 'light'. She has a sister a few years younger, and I could see how Anwaar is indeed lighting the way for her family, as she tries to help them see sense in her decision. If they honour her choice, she'll be paving the way for her little sister too.

The following day we spent time in Irbid, north of Amman, and found two twin girls who live with their parents and three other siblings in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a filthy apartment block. There is not one refugee family I've visited who hasn't made the best of the resources they have. Not one apartment I've seen which is disorganised or dirty, and not one place I've been where I haven't been offered food and drink. This family was no exception. The father, an engineer by trade, though also out of work, (Syrians are not allowed to get work permits in Jordan) was obviously well educated and spoke quite good English. He explained how they had fled the Ba'ba Amr district of Homs (like Fatima who I made another film about) while the town was being torn to shreds. As he sat with a twin on each knee, and his son curled up on the mattress beside them, he told us how he was worried about what his 12 year old daughter had seen in the streets of their hometown before their escape. 'People were fighting with their hands', he said, 'and she saw lots of people have their throats cut and fall into the gutter with her own eyes. My brothers and father also died in this way. I don't know how to shield her from these memories. She now has bad stomach pains, and I don't have the money to take her to the doctor.'

We gave him the money for the doctor and sat quietly in the room watching as he read an English text book to the twins, making them repeat the foreign words after his example. 'Where is your aunt?' 'My aunt is in Amman' he read from the book. 'Where is your aunt? My aunt is in Amman,' they repeated. 'Where is your uncle? My uncle is in Irbid...'Where is your cousin? My cousin is in Mafraq' and so on. 

If only these answers were as simple in real life. But he, like so many other Syrian parents, is valiantly trying to preserve the childhoods of his offspring, under threat of being lost in the waves of tragedy, like the other millions inside Syria and elsewhere in this region.