In Audrey Hepburn’s footsteps: Syrian refugee becomes youngest UNICEF goodwill ambassador
UNITED NATIONS: The UN children’s agency on Monday announced the appointment of its youngest goodwill ambassador — 19-year-old Syrian refugee and education activist Muzoon Almellehan.
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth said that Muzoon is the first goodwill envoy with official refugee status.
UNICEF said she received support from the agency while she was living in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. She follows in the footsteps of the late actress and goodwill ambassador Audrey Hepburn who was also supported by UNICEF as a child.
Muzoon said when she fled Syria she only took her school books with her.
“As a refugee, I saw what happens when children are forced into early marriage or manual labor,” she said.
Working with UNICEF, she said, will help to “give these children a voice and to get them into school.”
Almellehan is a friend of Malala Yousafzai, whom she met in 2014 when Yousafzai was visiting the refugee camp Almellehan was staying in. Yousafzai later invited Almellehan to the ceremony at which the former received the Nobel Peace Prize. Yousafzai also visited Almellehan upon the latter’s arrival in the UK. Almellehan’s activism received recognition in a number of countries, and she has since been called “Malala of Syria.”
Almellehan began advocating for girls’ education when she saw that half of the 40 girls in her class at Zaatari dropped out of school to get married. Child marriage, although not particularly common in Syria, increased dramatically after the civil war began. Almellehan tried to persuade parents to leave their children, particularly girls, in refugee schools rather than making them marry early.
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