At the startup of the Za'atari Refugee Camp in 2012 our answer to a single question made all the difference in our experience there for the next 6 years: Are refugees a problem or a solution? We chose the latter – refugees are people, like us, with solutions. They just don't live at their usual home anymore.

We (Jordanian staff and Syrian volunteers) dreamed up very ambitious plans for youth-led activities in a Youth Center (that we would have to build!) in Za'atari Refugee Camp – a place where everyone already knew resources were scarce. Impossible! Really?...MORE

One of the accomplishments you can be most proud of supporting is the 30,000 women who are currently active in therapy groups organized by our Syria team in communities and shelters throughout the country.

Among those efforts is Hear My Heart, a therapy space for women to support one another that is led by trained facilitators. It is also a way for our staff to understand women's needs and worries so we can better serve them and their families.

Hear My Heart helps women and girls like 15-year-old Ghada, who fled Aleppo with her family more than two years...MORE

When Sandra first arrived in Damascus two years ago, she barely spoke.

Sandra's parents are both missing. It was her grandmother who brought Sandra and her five siblings to Damascus, to escape fighting near the city of Homs.

When Sandra began attending programs at one of Questscope's shelters, staff there noticed her condition.

"Her grandmother explained to us that she suffered from a speech impediment, and her situation had deteriorated since her parents went missing because she did not receive the required care," one of our staff members at the shelter...MORE

A family with no education. Strike One.

A family in need of a few more dollars, just to make it. Strike Two.

Quitting school to work in an aluminum window company. Strike Three.

Or is it?

Zakaria dropped out at age 14 to get those few more dollars for his family. Working all day bending aluminum into window frames for clients’ kitchens left him no time for friends. Or for school. Shy. And quiet-spoken.

His employer, Abdullah, also had Strike Three against him. He went to work at an early age instead of going to school, and he...MORE

Dropping out of middle school to earn a meager handful of much-needed dollars for his family captured Hamzi in a very bad story.

A bad life-story that will cut his future down to a small size of struggle and second-rate opportunities. But it is also a story of buried treasure.

Hamzi was a good student. Math was his favorite subject – his passion. He had to put this passion on ice, maybe forever, when he dropped out to go to work in construction as a 16-year-old.

And it was hard to see his buddies going on to high school. He was left...MORE

Rahaf fled Aleppo with her family when missiles started crashing into their neighborhood.

They now share space with others in a communal shelter near Aleppo. Crowded, chaotic, crammed together.

She attends a temporary school there. Due to a learning disability, she is older than the grade level she is in. For other students, she is “the big girl who can’t read.”  It was very hard for 14-year old Rahaf when others made fun of her.  

Making friends was very hard, too. Teen girls, especially in the...MORE

Magic. Refugee camp. Poetry. Youth. A library.

What?! A library for refugees in a refugee camp? Poetry and writing workshops in that library? What's going on here? Backstory coming up.

Amjad's life crashed in the early days of the Syrian conflict. Violence. Hatred. Deep emotional wounds in a 20-something young man. Escape to a refugee camp. "I didn't know what a refugee was. I was a university student, not a refugee – whatever that was."

"When I came to the camp I felt that my spirit was being broken – just like so many youth around me....MORE

Nadine left her hometown of Dera’a, Syria with her husband Mohanad in 2013 and became a refugee in Jordan. The day they left was the hardest of their lives, but it was no longer possible to stay. Half of their friends and family had died and the others had been arrested.

"I arrived bringing only my soul and my childhood memories," Nadine said describing her first moments arriving in the Za'atari Refugee Camp. "When I first saw the tents, I felt like my life had stopped."

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The Za'atari Refugee Camp is a place where people who have no choices have to live. Youth in particular have very little control over their lives. They don't know when they'll be able to return home and most decisions about how they will live in the camp are made by others.

They are people in search of a significant life and a way to contribute to the world, but there is so much they cannot change.

The Creativity Fund Committee was born out of the desire to find what they CAN change. Every month, youth bring their ideas to this...MORE

We just celebrated a major milestone at our Youth Center in the Za’atari Refugee Camp: the official opening of our new sports field. It’s a rare patch of green in an oppressively brown and dusty refugee camp. Hundreds of youth now have a safe place to play and run around with their friends. 

This achievement alone is a big reason for us to celebrate. But the completion of the sports field means something even more significant: the Youth Center is now fully operational. 

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