In early 2021, Untold Research partnered with Project Soar, an incredible, feminist, nonprofit organization based in Marrakech, Morocco, with a mission to empower marginalized teen girls. Project Soar trains and equips local women facilitators using Project Soar in a Box – a scalable system that contains all the curriculum and supplies needed to help groups of teen girls to understand their value, voice, body, rights and path.
With active programs in Morocco and Uganda, Project Soar wanted to expand their program to Syria. They astutely decided research was needed to adapt the existing curriculum to be placed within this unique context. Untold Research was tasked with conducting ten focus groups to identify which areas of the existing curriculum needed modification and which topics faced by IDP girls demanded the creation of new modules altogether.
The conversations covered daily life, family dynamics, mental health, education, early and forced marriage, gender equality, and their views on the future. In many ways, IDP girls in Syria ages 13-15 share many qualities with their peers around the world: love for their families, a desire to feel safe and comfortable, and a dream for a prosperous future. However, poverty, death, and lack of educational opportunities are some of the elements which stand in the way of these girls having the carefree childhood enjoyed by so many others.
Perhaps the words which continue to haunt me are that of a 15-year-old girl from Minnegh, which is a town about one hour north of Aleppo, 40 minutes south of the Turkish border. The following is a composite based on the information she shared in the focus group. While I have not changed any content or detail, I have smoothed the translation and reordered her comments.
“My family used to be large. I used to have 11 brothers and sisters. Of my five brothers, only one remains. Two were arrested at the beginning of the revolution and the other two were martyred. My father has also died. My eldest sister is 35, she was married when she was 18 and lives in Aleppo with her husband. She doesn’t work. I love my family, but we are desperate. Desperate to be together again, desperate to go home.
I wish everyone in the regime would die. They have brought nothing but pain and death, heartache and sadness to my life, to my family. I’m constantly afraid of being kidnapped, of bombings, of more death. I want to go home. I want things to be safe and peaceful. I want things to be easier and more fair. My brother is not expected to do any work while all the girls do housework. Girls should be allowed to study and work, to do what they want in life, not be stuck at home.
I used to be more open. I used to share my thoughts and feelings, but I’ve learned now it is better not to do this. I am engaged and my fiancée wants me to leave school, to not finish my education. I told my family I don’t want to quit school – I don’t even want to get married now! They said it is up to my fiancé, it is his decision, not mine, that I must leave school. There seems to be no value or importance to my voice, my thoughts, so I keep them to myself. They don’t matter. Sometimes I feel like I don’t matter.”
Unfortunately, this is just one of dozens of similar stories uncovered from the girls. One of many resulting recommendations from this research was the inclusion of lessons on surviving trauma, dealing with grief and depression, coping with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and strategies for lowering daily anxiety levels. Having been in survival mode for so long, many of these girls are likely unsure how to process let alone communicate their feelings. Therefore, incorporating therapeutic art sessions into the curriculum – through drawing, music, or other forms -- may be a good way to ease them into learning how to express themselves and begin the long process of healing.