Being in the Middle East

The crisis in Syria has now been going on for five years. That's 5 years of fighting, gun battles, bombing, air assaults, displacement, injury, death and destruction.

It's a complex situation and it's hard to see how it will ever be resolved (see previous post for a good overview of the history of the crisis). The latest truce between the warring factions may have seen a reduction in hostilities but there have been violations on all sides. If you are on the receiving end of this continual violence then a return to peace must seem a very long way away.

Being in the Middle East has brought the reality of this crisis home to me in a way that no amount of media coverage in the UK ever could. At home it's a news story of something that's happening in another part of the world - no matter how moved I am by the human tragedy, how overwhelmed I am by the hopelessness of the situation, my life continues largely unchanged. 

Even here my life can still seem far removed from the humanitarian crisis happening on my doorstep. Amman is a fully functioning, modern city and I live in a comfortable apartment in a safe neighbourhood. I have hot running water, electricity, internet. I can make a phone call and get food delivered to my door. I walk to work passing shops that sell everything you could ever possibly need (or want) in life.

But Jordan is hosting over 600,000 Syrian refugees and when I get to work I hear just some of the stories of those directly affected. How they have fled their homes in fear of their lives, desperate to keep their children safe. Now they are living in a foreign country, often in substandard accommodation, unable to work (refugees are not allowed to work in Jordan) and struggling to provide for their family. We work with just a small number of these people in different ways. Over the winter we gave unconditional cash to around 1,000 families so they could buy whatever was needed to protect their homes and families from the cold weather. We also work with pregnant women, giving health education and providing financial assistance so they can attend ante-natal classes and give birth in a Government hospital (there is no free health care in Jordan for refugees and although the Government hospitals are heavily subsidised they are still unaffordable to those who have so little).

I sit in an office and work at a computer. I send e-mails, compile spreadsheets, write reports and attend meetings. It's not glamorous, it's not particularly exciting but it's what I can do. It is a small link in a chain of people and events that maybe, just maybe, can make the life of someone who has been through events I cannot imagine just slightly more bearable - if only for a while.