Syrian Rasha Hussein becomes Save the Children’s Ambassador

Save the Children organization has recently delegated the Syrian pioneer girl Rasha Hussein as one of its ambassadors.

As one of her first tasks, Hussein, 17, a refugee teenager living in the Netherlands, has recently met the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs and presidency candidate, Sigrid Kag. According to the organization’s Facebook page, the meeting focused on the condition of Syrian children in camps, their important role to the future of Syria and the need to help and protect them. A topic that is all too familiar to Hussein, who wrote a novel when she was only 13, entitled “Shadows of the Sea”, which was published by Prometheus in 2016. In a couple of chapters, she addressed the psychological struggles of refugee children and the impact of the war on those were still in living in camps back in Syria and need psychosocial support.

Hussein some voices in the Dutch parliament are refusing to provide financial support to refugee children or to the organizations that are trying to help them, Rasha stressed that these children are in dire need psychological debriefing, “It is important for everyone to listen to the children's stories to better understand the trauma they are dealing with.”

Hussein was happy to meet with the minister and was able during the meeting to present the Save the Children report on the conditions and needs of Syrian children in camps. In light of the report and the discussion that took place, the government is expected to provide budget to the organization, with the hope that the Netherlands would pay more attention to helping Syrian children. According to Hussein, there is an ongoing plan to persuade the government to provide financial help or to receive Syrian children.

Hussein said that her mission as an ambassador for Save the Children is to represent the organization in celebrations and events and to help collect donations, noting that her main focus will be the issue of Syrian camps.

The young author, originally from eastern Deir Ezzor province, took refuge with her family in the Netherlands in 2013. She is soon to graduate high school in Amsterdam and, according to her, she wants to study international law so that one day she would be able to help her homeland overcome its current crisis.

Save the Children was founded in the United Kingdom in by Eglantyne Jebb to support children and to provide aid during war and natural disasters. It has since grown to become the largest independent child rights organization in the world, operating in more than 120 countries, providing help and protecting children regardless of religion, gender, race, color, nationality, or political affiliation.

Zaman Al Wasl