Actress challenges the world to do better
Chopra urges more help for Syrian children
AMMAN, JORDAN The world must do more to help Syrian refugee children get an education, actress Priyanka Chopra said at an afterschool centre in Jordan’s capital.
Individuals can make a difference with donations if governments don’t step up, said Chopra, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and a Bollywood and Hollywood star.
“We need to take it into our own hands because this is our world and we only have one of it,” Chopra said.
“I think the world needs to understand that this is not just a Syrian refugee crisis, it’s a humanitarian crisis.”
Without sufficient support, “this can be an entire generation of kids that could turn to extremism because they have not got an education,” she said.
Some five million Syrians have fled civil war in their homeland since 2011, many settling in nearby Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. The influx has overburdened host countries, including their schools.
More than half a million Syrian refugee children of school age — or one-third of the total — are not enrolled in school or informal education in the host countries.
Meanwhile, the UN and aid agencies supporting the refugees routinely face large funding gaps.
On Sunday, Chopra, a light grey scarf slung over her hair, visited a UNICEF-backed children’s centre in Jordan’s capital of Amman. The UN child welfare agency supports more than 200 such Makani centres — Arabic for “my space” — in Jordan, along with other refugee education programs.
In the centre, preteen girls and boys sat around low tables or on the ground, colouring or gluing glitter on paper. A young boy told her he wanted to become an actor. She told him that one of the prerequisites is not to be shy and then challenged him to a staring contest. They locked eyes until she stopped, laughing.
Chopra, 35, stars in Quantico, a TV drama about FBI trainees that airs on ABC and CTV, now entering its third season.
She appeared in the Baywatch movie and has two more feature films coming out, Isn’t It Romantic with Rebel Wilson, Adam DeVine and Liam Hemsworth, as well as A Kid Like Jake with Claire Danes, Jim Parsons and Octavia Spencer.
Chopra said that she didn’t realize until working in America that it’s “difficult for a woman of colour” to be cast in a wide range of roles.
“It’s a fight, it’s a battle,” she said, “and I am not afraid to fight it.”