FEBRUARY 6 BY IMPR
Roza is one of the tens of thousands children who escaped to Suruc with only their clothes after the attack of ISIS to Kobani on 19th of September. She had to leave behind her house, friends, memories and her beloved pictures and crayons in Kobani.
Roza lived and learned what refugee means and how to be a refugee at the age of 12. Right now Roza, most of whose relatives died in the war, struggles for life in Ziyaret village together with her mother and she left her beloved father just a year ago in Kobani.
Our First encounter with Roza happens to be thanks to the IMPR Humanitarian’s Child Friendly Space (CFS) projects located in four different districts of Suruç in November, 2014. People from Kobani knew and noticed IMPR Humanitarian from the boundaries and city centres distributing aids at the first days of the war. After all, IMPR Humanitarian Suruç team decided to start CFS projects in order to help children overcome the war traumas, and opened one of the CFS in Ziyaret village. Our teams are still trying so hard to help those children overcome the effects of the war with the activities of self protection, awareness games, risk education, and creative drama and so on.
In the first days of Roza’s participant to CFS activities she was observed as a timid and silent girl. After dealing with various activities it showed up that she has a great interest in painting and that is why we mostly concentrated on painting for Roza’s activities.
At the beginning, her silent and timid behaviors seemed to express her resentment towards life. She wanted to paint for hours and always gave place to a crying girl within her paintings. IMPR Humanitarian team approach more sensitive to this issue and made the first step to talk to her by asking her the question of “why the girl was crying” instead of “who the girl was?” The answer Roza gave to this question was that girl was crying because her father died and she missed her father click here so much and that she needs him especially now when she is in such a bad situation to protect her. We learned after several days of our dialog with her that the girl in the paintings was actually 12 year old as well. Besides establishing dialogs with Roza, IMPR Humanitarian team also encouraged her to do activity with them as the time went by. In a short time of period Roza was actually attending by herself to the preparations of the activities.
When the dentist Dt. Sevim Demir, who came to Suruç to make dental screening and protection to the refugee children, was in the classroom, Roza stated that she wants to be a doctor just like her in order to help people and relieve children who escaped from war. In the week days, without changing her school dress Roza runs to CFS with her shinning eyes looking hopeful to the future.
During Dt. Sevim Demir’s dental screening, she acted like a translator and helped our photographer and said to her friends in the classroom “We are not taking the photos of the ones who are not smiling” which means “Kesên ku nekenin em e wêneyên wan nekşînin” in Kurdish.
In order to add smiles to her friends, family and everyone around her, now Roza has a camera, and to give her chance to draw the beauties and her hopes, she also has a drawing book. First and foremost, from now on she has elders, whom she sees an idols and who will always be together with her.
*We changed the girl’s name for confidentiality.