The Big Girl Who Can't Read

June 14, 2017.

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

Willow Creek in Za'atari: Part 1

June 7, 2017.

We were five days in to a nine-day trip when we pulled up to the guard post at Za’atari camp in northern Jordan. We’d seen the news stories and heard the statistics: There are 79,000 people living as refugees in temporary housing while they wait for the war to end in Syria or for UN refugee resettlement and placement.

In a place where I was expecting to find hopelessness and defeat, there is indeed unimaginable pain.

But it was at Za’atari, where I learned about how people living as refugees are also living as real-life heroes, as they create the world of...MORE

A Teenager, a Little Baby, and a Big Second Chance

May 8, 2017.

Bayan is 14 and attends alternative education classes in Madaba, Jordan. She really enjoys math and the games she plays to learn mathematical concepts. And her new friends at the alternative education center help her to learn – while they help her take care of her baby girl in the class.

Her baby girl?

Bayan dropped out of school when she was forced into an early marriage. Now she lives in a tent with her unemployed husband and works on a farm for $14 a day as an agricultural laborer.

Talk about having...MORE

Finding Refuge at Midnight

April 27, 2017.

Last week – just after midnight – 1,500 people finally found refuge after surviving more than two years of siege. 

They traveled for days in crowded buses after they left their besieged villages. They survived a suicide bombing attack. And they arrived at our collective shelters in the middle of the night - women and children - physically and emotionally exhausted. They kept moving in hope they would find safety at the end of that journey.  

And when they arrived, our Syria team was there – ready and able to provide shelter and assistance.

...MORE

Former USAID Official to Join Questscope

April 13, 2017.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 13, 2017 

Former USAID Official to Join Social Change Organization Questscope
Mark Brinkmoeller, former Director of the Center for Faith Based and Community Initiatives at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will join Questscope as US Director

Contact: Rachel Stone, Questscope, 612-607-6476; rachelstone@questscope.org

Washington, D.C. – Mark Brinkmoeller, former USAID Official, has...MORE

Meet Udara

April 3, 2017.

We've been working on a new project for months, and we're so excited to finally share it with you. With division and conflict all around us, we wanted to find a way to come together and care for each other as best we can.  

Along with four other organizations taking action for Syrians, we're partnering with Udara. It's an interactive mobile application that shows you ways to help based on your talents and interests.

...MORE

Update: Emergency Response in Syria

February 27, 2017.

Overview

In late December, we sent out an urgent request for help evacuating families from Aleppo and the surrounding villages. After the front lines collapsed and the fighting ended, nearly 100,000 people were on the move from places that had been bombed and shelled. 

In the villages of Al-Foua’a and Driya, thousands of women and children were evacuated to safety in Homs after living under siege for nearly three years. 

They left with nothing and needed everything. You answered our call for help and raised almost $100,000 ‒ twice our...MORE

Beauty in the Beastliness of War

January 31, 2017.

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

2016: A Year in Review

December 29, 2016.

When I am asked if I ever despair about the future of Syria, I am reminded of Gandalf's advice to Frodo in the Lord of the Rings: 'You can only despair if you already know the end of the story."

I don’t know the end of the story. Nobody does. But I know Syrians. They are amazing. I know the commitment of our Questscope community. And I know what could happen through these amazing people. So, hope, yes. Despair, no.

2016 was a challenging year. As the Syria crisis expanded in its destruction of lives, we extended our ability to reach into unnoticed places of hurt and pain...MORE

Humanitarian Crisis Update for Aleppo

December 21, 2016.

100,000 people on the move away from places they have been bombed and shelled. A city of four million shattered, ruined, devastated – in the mid of winter.

Roy Moussalli and his team are there with them. Yesterday, they started receiving 2,500 sick, wounded and/or disabled displaced persons in an area near Homs, Syria. These individuals have just been rescued from a three-year siege of their two villages in an area around Aleppo. For three years, the only food they could get was parachuted in to them. No medical...MORE

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