As our bus slowed in front of the orphanage for the last time, all the volunteers turned to witness the growing crowd of refugees forming outside the front of the building, the eclectic sounds of voices and traditional drums combining to greet us. Over the last two weeks, we ate, worked, played and got to know this group of outstanding individuals. 

As the bus door opened and the other volunteers began disembarking to join the celebrations taking place outside, I found myself overcome with a depth of emotion. I began to think about the people I met on this trip — their stories, their hardships — and only then did I realize how deeply it impacted me. As much as I tried to build the courage, I couldn't seem to get off the bus. 

I didn’t know it then, but the only person who could get me off the bus at that moment was out there in the midst of the celebration.

Civil War

Spreading Kindness Together Welfare (SKT Welfare) and International Aid Charity (IAC) are organizations focused on humanitarian relief related to the Syrian civil war, which began when the Syrian government used violence to suppress anti-authoritarian protests. Since the civil war began in early 2011, approximately 13 million Syrians have been displaced, and an estimated 874,000 people have lost their lives as a result of the conflict. Throughout the conflict, SKT Welfare and IAC have worked to support Syrian refugees through food assistance, healthcare, education and emergency relief.

Combining my work with both SKT Welfare and IAC, I have been on five separate volunteer trips to the border of Syria in hopes of aiding those in need. 

From an early age, I was surrounded by the idea of helping others. I suppose this comes in part from my dad, who at the age of 12 fled Somalia as a refugee in the wake of a brutal dictatorship. To escape a threat posed on his life, he was smuggled through Somalia in the back of a coffee truck covered by bags of coffee beans. And before starting her own private practice, my mom worked as a nurse helping the homeless in San Jose, California. This is all to say that my whole life I have seen how crises impact people and how those willing can truly create change.

In 2011, immediately after the civil war broke out in Syria, my mother and I traveled to and began our volunteering in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. I was eight years old at the time, and while I don’t remember much from that first trip, I recall feeling a pull to return and continue serving.  I returned to volunteer on the border four more times in hopes of leaving a positive lasting impact within the community. Each trip lasted about two weeks and allowed me to join 15 to 20 other volunteers from across the world. Prior to each trip, I fundraised by contacting those I knew and setting up bake sales across the Bay Area, where I live.

Each trip began with myself and whoever I was traveling with flying to and staying the night in Istanbul. It was often here that we would first get to meet the volunteers that traveled from across the world to join us on this life-changing volunteer trip.

"I truly struggled to understand how people that have gone through so much hardship could stand on land that is not their own and be happy in that moment."

                                                                                  Ibrahim Hassen

As we stepped onto the streets of Istanbul before departing, I was reminded that Turkey always seemed alive. Locals gathered over Turkish tea and hookahs, vendors’ voices rose in the distance, and taxi drivers communicated through their horns and gestures from open windows. After adjusting to the active and enthralling culture of Turkey, our group would depart for the town of Reyhanli on the border of Syria. Reyhanli was unlike anywhere I had been before. The town’s center sprawled across countless streets lined with five-story buildings, many with lively businesses at street level. Just minutes outside town, a sea of white-tarp tents came into view. Looking west, you could see a long stretch of hills marking the Syrian border. Upon arrival we would meet those closest both to the charities and the cause itself.

The Work

What made the work we did so substantial was in part the fact that the leaders themselves were often Syrian refugees. Each of these leaders carried a depth of knowledge about what the people in the communities and refugee camps were in need of and the best way for us to support them.

After meeting everyone and putting our bags down, we always got straight to work packing food parcels, which were funded entirely through donations. The packing and distribution of the parcels is one of the most vivid memories for me from each of these trips, in part because of how it directly helped those in need as well as how it brought all the volunteers together.

After we finished packing and loading all the food parcels onto the trucks, we went to refugee camps and communities delivering these parcels. When we showed up to each of these communities, there would already be a line of people as far as the eye could see.

As soon as the trucks stopped, the work of ticking off family names and handing out parcels began. In one location I remember volunteers handing out parcels, kids playing soccer, people receiving medical care and others on crutches waiting in line to feed their families. I often ended up carrying the food parcels for those who couldn't walk back to their residence within each camp or community. This in itself led me to witness things that I believe every person should.

I remember seeing entire families living in a singular tent, the mats many of them slept on, the dirt roads crisscrossing through each camp and community. Each and every person I met had a story worth hearing, and while I didn't speak Arabic, I was blessed that my father and others could translate for me. Whether it was stories of people they lost, the horrors they witnessed or of optimism for the future of both themselves and their families, it never ceased to touch my soul.

Fatima

Throughout my time in Reyhanli, we worked heavily with the SKT Welfare orphanage. The charity had funded and built the orphanage in hopes of providing a safe and positive space for orphans and widows with children to live and receive an education. It was there that I met a young girl named Fatima. She was bubbly, wore a grey hijab and never failed to fill a room with laughter. Every time I saw Fatima, she would run up to me, politely ask for my phone and take filtered selfies of us on Snapchat, which we would laugh at together. Despite everything surrounding us, it was moments like these that made it easy to forget, even briefly, the circumstances that had brought us together.
 

The one thing I never failed to mention when discussing these trips with others is how truly optimistic and often happy many of the people I met were. Especially throughout the first two trips I truly struggled to understand how people that have gone through so much hardship could stand on land that is not their own and be happy in that moment. That persistence and steadfast happiness in the face of true hardship is one of the many reasons I have and will continue to volunteer.

Reyhanli taught me that people and the connections we form with them are the most important and valuable parts of life. That realization has entirely shaped my pursuit of starting a business and an affiliated nonprofit foundation, pushed me to continue seeking opportunities to volunteer and encouraged me to put real human connection at the forefront of my priorities. I know that the choices I make, both personally and professionally, are influenced by my experiences in Reyhanli, and for that I am forever grateful. 

Last Stop

As I sat emotionally paralyzed on the bus with my dad encouraging me to exit, he eventually gave me some room and left the bus himself. I watched through the slightly tinted window as orphans, refugees and volunteers embraced each other in song and dance.

As I stared out that window, I heard a flurry of high-pitched voices coming from the front of the bus. When I turned my head, I immediately broke down crying: Walking down the aisle toward me was the same bubbly girl who had spent the last two weeks taking filtered selfies on my phone. 

I had come to Reyhanli believing that I was there to help people like Fatima, yet in that moment, I was the one who needed help moving forward. Despite everything that happened on that trip and everything I saw, those tears were not sad. They were tears of joy. In Fatima, I saw the same happiness and perseverance that had been so difficult for me to understand throughout my time in Reyhanli. 

With that realization, Fatima and my other friends came to my seat, grabbed my arm, and led me out of the bus into the celebration.

Top photo: Ibrahim Hassen, far left, distributes treats to children at the Syrian border. (Photo: Ibrahim Hassen)

Ibrahim Hassen, a fourth-year marketing student, is a student assistant with the Communications Department in the Orfalea College of Business.

Orfalea College of Business students are having a positive impact on society now. Please support our students who are supporting others.

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