Gwynedd Friends Meeting member travels to meet Syrian refugees
LOWER GWYNEDD » Carol Shearon and her fellow congregates of Gwynedd Friends Meeting have been a part of the effort to fundraise more than $30,000 for a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) program that supports Syrian refugee families who are fleeing the Syrian crisis.
For the past six years, more than 13.5 million people have been displaced in and are in need of immediate assistance.
Shearon, who says she feels as strong a connection with her international community as her own community in Gwynedd Valley, said she realized she wanted to do more than mail a check to these families. She wanted to meet with them, to see the direct effect the church’s donations had
on their everyday life.
“I was discussing the challenge of keeping people connected to the plight of refugees when they seemed to have dropped away [from] front-page news, replaced by political drama and intrigue and terrorist attacks in the ‘first’ world,” said Shearon, referring to her correspondence with members of the UNHCR, with whom she’s been in contact for more than a year now.
It was then that Susan LaBombard, senior manager with USA for UNHCR, invited Shearon to join them on a trip to visit families living in Amman, Jordan, who are receiving monthly cash assistance from the Lifeline Program Shearon’s congregation has been supporting.
With 1.1 million refugees living in Lebanon, just over a quarter of the country’s population, cash-based intervention allows Syrians to become contributing members of their hosts’ economy, therefore easing assimilation and fostering financial independence.
“These families are given cash once a month to use on whatever they need for their family, and to me, that is respectful, there is dignity in that,” said Shearon, explaining why the program appealed to her.
Shearon enthusiastically
accepted the offer, and within a few weeks, she was flying halfway around the world to the Hashemite Kingdom.
Visiting the Syrian refugees in their tin shelters in the Jordan desert and being invited into their modest shelters-turned-homes was a life-changing experience, according to Shearon.
They visited a shelter that housed a mother, father and three children.
“Their home was spare, small and very simple, but also warm and spotless,” said Shearon. It was adorned with mats and cushions on the floor, and a colorful cloth with geometric designs covered one end of the shelter.
With the help of the UNHCR
translator, “We admired their small blackand-white TV that provided respite from the crushing boredom of the camp. We also benefited from their fan on the 97-degree day as we chatted. However, the ‘star’ of the kitchen was the small, used refrigerator,” said Shearon.
Because of this cash assistance program, which Gwynedd Friends Meeting continues to support, the mother no longer has to take her food vouchers to the distant market on a daily basis.
Electricity transformed the quality of their lives in many ways. The refugees are now living in 24-squaremeter shelters powered by
the first solar plant implemented for a refugee camp.
“On our way to visit one of the refugee families who benefited from the solar installation, our UNHCR guide pointed out the small bathroom and gravity-fed shower house that was shared by six families. We also passed the shared water spigots that were being enjoyed by some of the boys from the camp,” said Shearon.
While the toys Shearon wanted to bring with her were confiscated in the airport, she was able to present to the families a certificate of support signed by fellow Quaker Meeting friends and family.
The letter read in Arabic: To our Syrian Brothers and Sisters,
The religious Society of Friends believes that all people everywhere are part of one family. All people everywhere contain a seed of Divine love and compassion, and it is this that unites us.
The pain and tragic upheaval that your families are experiencing cause us great sadness. We promise to remember you, to support you, and to pray for you.
Gwynedd Friends Meeting, Gwynedd Pennsylvania, USA “The translator’s reading of the certificate visibly moved the family we visited,” said Shearon, adding that it was an emotional meeting for her, as well as for the families.
Shearon came home from her trip to Jordan with a deep appreciation for the resilience and values of the refugee families.
“Both of the families that Susan and I met conveyed a longing for home and family in Syria while humbly doing what was required to give their children a modicum of normalcy in an upside-down world,” said Shearon.