Mason Students Help Refugee Children in Turkey
There’s more to peacebuilding than negotiating treaties and shaking hands, some George Mason University students learned this summer. “A lot of peacebuilding is trauma healing. It’s about helping people through trauma and helping the next generation—the kids—have a healthier set of memories,” says Mason professor Marc Gopin.
Gopin, the director of George Mason’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, took 20 students to locations near the border of Turkey and Syria to understand conflict from political figures and activists in the thick of it.
Voices from Syria
Sometimes we have to look at the worst in humanity to find the best. Many of the children we encountered have experienced unimaginable horrors, things that many of us cannot even bear to comprehend. These children themselves, they are absolutely amazing. They want to laugh, play, and simply be children. Seeing a little boy with burn scars all over his body and who had lost his father bounce around like a normal five-year-old was nothing short of miraculous. Many of the very young children have been “adopted” by some of the older kids. The sight of a ten-year-old girl dutifully comforting a nearly inconsolable four year old moved many of us.