Post-workshops message from our Founder & Director Nousha Kabawat​

IMG_4516As another week with the Project Amal ou Salam team ends in Lebanon, I cannot help but look back at our journey over the past four years.

Exactly four years ago I collected some money, bought some supplies and convinced some friends to join me on the Syrian-Turkish border dreaming of giving the ChildrenOfSyria who now lived there just a tiny little bit of hope – just a tiny little sense of belief that they would be OK.

Four years later, we welcomed 33 international volunteers from all around the world to our workshops in Lebanon.

Some of them are passionate about Syria; some are passionate about children; some believe in the importance of education; and some just want to be able to one day tell their children that they didn’t just sit back and watch as humanity crumbled around them.

The one thing that everyone has in common is passion. Passion to bring about change.

I watched, day after day, the children’s reactions to these 33 volunteers that had pressed the pause button on their “normal lives” to come be with them. And what an inspiring reaction it was.

The children’s instant connection to the volunteers and the volunteers instant love for the children, despite a cultural barrier and not speaking the same language, is a reminder that the world can be a beautiful place – we just need to be passionate enough to believe we can make it one.

Thank you to the amazing Project Amal ou Salam ambassadors that I am so blessed to be able to call my family.

Thank you for supporting my crazy ideas, for trusting my vision, for pushing me to think bigger and most importantly for giving the Children of Syria Hope and reminding us all that we are all in this together.

Because without Hope we have nothing.

Keep spreading the love ❤

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS – Lebanon 2017

volunteer lebanon

Project Amal ou Salam’s next workshops will be in Lebanon26-31 August.

We’ve become a lot more than just a programme. I think we’ve become a movement of people who share the same beliefs and share the same ideology. You’re always thinking what can I offer to Syria? I think Project Amal ou Salam is giving people a way to take their own expertise and give that to the kids. Which is so refreshing and rewarding.

(Nousha Kabawat, founder&director)

If you want to join our movement and work with our team and with the Children of Syria, apply by sending an email to projectamalousalam@gmail.com with your CV and a motivation letter. Make sure you tell us:

  • how you heard about us
  • why you want to volunteer with us
  • what you think you can bring to Project Amal ou Salam and our children

Deadline’s 15 July.

Twice a year, around 30 international volunteers gather from all over the world to join Project Amal ou Salam and the Children of Syria in working for peace.

We organise five volunteer-run workshops for kids aged 5 to 14: arts, music, photography, sports and health. Click here to learn more about our workshops.

Keep spreading the love! ♥

“Why support for Syria’s nonviolent fighters is key to ending the war” on Waging NonViolence

170421 Waging NonViolenceThere will be no end to the civil war in Syria without the sustained and active participation of Syrian activists, peacebuilders and humanitarians inside the country, in the surrounding region, and dispersed in the diaspora.

These individuals and groups, which are operating under the most difficult conditions imaginable, are building and sustaining health and education systems, protecting civilians from violence and extremism coming from multiple sides, organizing to increase community participation in the peace process, and trying to imagine and piece together an alternative future. They include groups like the The White Helmets, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Karam Foundation, Citizens for Syria مواطنون لأجل سوريا, Syria Deeply, Project Amal ou Salam – مشروع أمل وسلام , the Center for Civil Society and Democracy in Syria, the المنصة المدنية السورية Syrian Civil Society Platform, الرقة تذبح بصمت Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, Khadraa Organization, Syrian Expatriate Medical Association – SEMA, منظمة بنفسج – Violet Organization, the Syrian Emergency Task Force and Women Now For Development. These organizations are building the resilience, social capital and civic infrastructure upon which a future peace will rest.

The voices of these Syrian nonviolent fighters should be amplified in the media, their shoestring budgets should receive multi-year support, and they should feel international solidarity.

Read the full article here.