(Zaman Al Wasl)- Twelve-year-old Basel Alrashdan, who arrived on P.E.I. in December 2015, was part of a crowd of children who rushed to the front of a conference room at the UN and announced the takeover. Alrashdan took part in a rap about children's wishes for the world, based on the Stevie Wonder song As, according to CBC.
On November 20, in the lobby of the United Nations, the Syrian refugee child sat confidently and calmly with a hint of childish shyness. He spoke by phone with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, conveying the suffering of his fellow Syrian children and their dreams of security and peace as their childhood was robbed by the war.
Basel was born in the town of Tafs in Daraa countryside. He was born and raised in Damascus in a family of five. His father is a veterinarian who worked as an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture in Damascus. After the war intensified, his family moved to Daraa. Basel’s family was resettled by UNHCR to live in Prince Edward Island county, Basel’s father Amjad Alrashdan says. They arrived on December 27, 2015.
After Basel mastered the language and his enrollment in school, he wanted to convey to Canadian society and to the world the suffering of children in Syria through programs and homework, which in Canada depends on children choice of stories and children explain them through pictures or computer programs, including his project "Hayati".
The child from Darya, in Damascus countryside, was distinguished by his passion for reading and participating in all sports and leisure activities over the past two years. He has also participated and was among the first 16 in a competition and as a result was nominated for the competition on the level of Canada. A group of UNICEF staff visited him in the United Nations and they were greatly impressed by his personality, his English proficiency, his ability to express and recount the events he had with his family, and they completed a documentary about him in 2016 and was therefore chosen to represent childhood in the world with a group of children.
Basel's father added that an organization in Canada contacted him and told him that his son was invited to speak on the occasion of Universal Children's Day, on 20 November each year. He was chosen from among 7 children representing the Universal Children’s Day. They children were from India, Burundi and the Syrian girl "Nancy" who came from America, and after difficulties in obtaining travel papers, passport and visa, Basel arrived to the United Nations platform and expressed his opinion on Universal Children's Day with perfectness and calm and self-confidence, calling on all countries to respect the rights of children to live safely and have access to education, health, and their right to enjoy Childhood ".
According to UNICEF, despite the tremendous progress made in promoting children's rights over the past decades, the latest data indicate that 385 million children live in extreme poverty, 264 million are excluded from school, and 5.6 million children died last year as a result of possible diseases that can be prevented.
During the conference Basel presented his "my journey" project. The project talks about his departure from Syria to Jordan to Canada, explaining aspects of his suffering, which has been part of the suffering of Syrian children for years. He also talked about life in Canada and the challenges facing him.
On the first day of his arrival in New York, Basil recorded an episode of the show "Show" of UNICEF YouTube channel on which they asked Basel about his life, his journey and ambitions.
His father added that Basel participated in a party of acquaintances with children of different ages from several countries on the second day. The third day was devoted to rehearsing a training session on the speech to be delivered at the conference. The rehearsals were in the same hall where he delivered the speech.
His father said he knew that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was going to call Basel but he did not tell Basel because he was worried Trudeau would get busy and not be able to call Basel. When Basel arrived in the studio in the lobby of the United Nations, he was informed by a UNICEF staff member that the Canadian prime minister is going to talk with him today. Basel did not take the staff membe news seriously and thought it was a joke.
Basel was astonished when they starte arranging the studio for the phone call with Trudeau and he was nervous during the phone call.
Basel lives with his siblings Shaza (8 years), Idris (6) and the newborn child Tamim, two months and his parents in Prince Edward Island, Charlotte East County. He is at the seventh grade at the Charlotte-Queen Charlotte School which helped him master English.
More than half of the 16 pupils in his class are children of immigrant origin, according to the UNHCR. Basel, as his father says, is interested in electronic devices and computer programs, adding that Basel aspires be a computer engineer or an engineer to offer something useful for Syria which he left four years ago. (Reporting by Faris Rifai)
Zaman A Wasl
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.