Cloud 9

David's old friend from high school - an exchange student from England named Stewart - was coming to Lebanon for a holiday, and we convinced him to pop over to Jordan for a couple of days with his wife Raina. Both of them make films for a living, and Stewart works full time now as a film producer for Save the Children UK. Their visit just happened to coincide with the first day of the youth training for documentary film-making, so Stu and Raina came. Stu showed some of his work and answered questions from the participants. Stu and Raina were really inspirational, and they were impressed with Mohammad Hushki, the director/trainer. I was on cloud 9 seeing everything come together. These 20-somethings are all Iraqi refugees, a few years into their life-on-hold here in Jordan where they can't really work. They can't go back home, and many are waiting to be re-located to a third country. So here they are learning from pros about film-making: producing, sound, lighting, camera use... Yesterday they were already putting up sets around the office and practice interviewing people. Next week, we're heading out to capture the story of a friend of one of the kids, a 16-year-old who lives and works at a plastics factory and supports his family who are stuck in Syria.

Having an idea, finding support, coordinating with various people, and then being there to actually see it happen...all within a few months...it's so much more exciting than sitting behind a desk writing reports :)

Ghanem Jabar Hatiyah

A former Iraqi soldier and father of two young children, Ghanem has never before held a puppet but is still an instant success at the Irbid Kindergarten’s Community Learning Through Play Day. Surrounded by young children rapt by the performance, Ghanem is clearly enjoying himself, too. As a volunteer in Save the Children’s Khatawat program, Ghanem is not only helping children in need, but he has found an opportunity for personal growth and fulfillment.

At first appearance, Ghanem seems an unlikely candidate for volunteering to help little children. He’s a big man with a deep voice, a weathered face and hands rough from hard work. But his smile lights up with a youthful excitement when he describes the impact his involvement in Khatawat has had on his life.

“Although I am 45-years-old, I never before felt like this, like I have a role in life. Now I have more energy and a curiosity to learn and develop myself.”

Ghanem grew up poor in Iraq. He dreamed of going to university, but life was too hard. After high school, he joined the army to support his family, and five years later he was seriously wounded in the Iran-Iraq war. Without any help from the government, Ghanem struggled to recover and make a life for himself. He spent years as a migrant worker going back and forth between Iraq and Jordan until he married Maysoun, a Jordanian woman. They settled in Irbid, Jordan where he now owns a small shop and volunteers for Save the Children’s early childhood education program, Khatawat.

“I always wanted to find a way to help others, but never before did I have such an opportunity as Khatawat. I had never heard of child protection before. I suffered a lot as a child, and it makes me feel good to make children happy so they will not hurt like I did.”

A war zone is no place for children, as any Iraqi parent who fled to Jordan can tell you. The negative effects of social instability and violence on children are numerous. Their cognitive, emotional, social and physical development are all at risk when they are denied a safe environment in which to learn and play.

In the Khatawat program, Save the Children helps vulnerable families, both Iraqi and Jordanian, by providing tuition for their four and five-year-olds to attend safe community kindergartens where they receive a quality early childhood education.

Save the Children’s Khatawat program package includes major renovations to the school and playground, a complete set of classroom furniture and learning equipment, toys and art materials for the children, training and on-going guidance for teachers, and support for community, parent and volunteer activities directed toward strengthening the social network that cares for children.

With regular training and coordination support from Save the Children, Ghanem has visited the homes of families with young, out-of-school children to explain the benefits of the Khatawat program and help them enroll their children. He earned their trust by being present at every stage: on registration day, at the parents’ orientation, and on the bus with the children on the first days of school. He also participated with them in a Save the Children psychosocial workshop aimed at helping parents cope with raising children in a stressful situation.

In the first year of the program, more than 100 children in Irbid will have access to kindergarten due to the recruitment work of Ghanem and other volunteers, and even more children will benefit from activities like the Community Learning Through Play Day. On the day of this interview, one hundred and fifty children and their parents spent the day at the school planting flowers, painting, eating together and participating in fun activities that taught kids and their parents about traditional Iraqi music, oral hygiene and traffic safety. Ghanem entertained the children with puppets that another volunteer had made for the event. 

Before he joined Khatawat, Ghanem was shy and lacking in self-confidence. 

“I wanted to be alone most of his time. But being a volunteer has built my confidence. I feel more human, like I have value.”

Ghanem wants more for his children, as any parent does, and through this program he found a way to support their growth, as well as his own. 

“We are grateful because this program has given our children a chance to be happy. Save the Children provides a safe place for them to play and learn. It is much more than we even imagined for our children.” 

where nighttime entertainment meets daytime drama

Last night I watched Generation Kill, the first episode. I'm always up for a really good series. And I do feel like I need to watch more films about Iraq, from every perspective. 

The cultural divide between me and the soldiers was grand canyon-like. They are marines trained to kill. There's a lot of testosterone and some talk about the supremacy of the white man.

Meanwhile, I spent the day writing up interviews I'd had with some Iraqis. I got teary-eyed at my desk as I wrote about a an ex-soldier wounded in the Iran-Iraq War who did a puppet show for the Iraqi children at a kindergarten we support. He was this deep-voiced guy with meat hooks for hands. He told me later he'd never held a puppet before in his life. "It gave me great pleasure to make the children happy since I had such a sad childhood myself."

It's going to be a tough on the outside, healing child on the inside kind of story. Corny? You had to meet the guy.

So in the last scene of the GKill episode, these marine kids come across some defecting Iraqi soldiers trudging through the desert, and they treat them badly--pour out their meager ration of water, steal from them, force them to the ground, mock them...

I felt like I was watching invaders attacking my neighbors. It was extremely offensive. The Iraqis were more familiar to me. 

Yet the kids were familiar to me, obviously. They're Americans for god's sake. 

I know TV is not reality. But dehumanization and cruelty to others is apparently a natural ingredient of war, no matter the justification. 

It made me feel naive in my little aid-worker bubble.

People sometimes wonder how I can bring my children into such a dangerous part of the world. But my world, the people we know and hang with, the expats and internationally-minded nationals, are of the same peace-loving, diversity-celebrating mindset that we are. We're all globe-huggin humanitarians.