The Most Memorable Humans of the Refuge stories of the Year...

HUMANS OF THE REFUGE

One hot July night I couldn’t sleep. I opened the TV and watched the BBC reporting about a Sudanese man in the same age of mine that was stuck by a truck and died on the spot. The truck crushed his body while he was desperately trying to force his way into the Eurotunnel to reach the United Kingdom where he hoped to claim Asylum. The report was two minutes long and it didn’t mention the man’s name or his story, but rather focused on the traffic jam that resulted from the “incident” and the unease the motorists felt while they were waiting for the body to be carried away. That night I couldn't sleep.

I searched in Google “The Jungle” and “Calais, France” and the page of “Calais Migrant Solidarity” came up. I was horrified by what I read there. At that time, 3,000 Asylum seekers from all over the world were stuck in a makeshift camp on a site of a former rubbish tip in Calais. They jump on moving trains, buses and trucks on their desperate attempts to reach the United Kingdom where they will claim Asylum.

The Jungle, Photo by Tinka Kalajzic

In the morning I called “Calais Migrant Solidarity”, a young French lady with perfect English answered me. I told her I am on the other side of the Atlantic and by random luck and birth lottery I am not in the Jungle right now, how can I help? Silence, then she said “You can help by raising awareness.” From that moment my life was changed forever, I have a mission now and this how “Humans of the Refuge” page was created.

Behind Every Refugee There is a Story

Photo: Osama's facebook page

Remember the viral video where a Hungarian Camerawoman seen tripping an older man carrying a little boy in his arms then the man falls and lands on top of the boy. This man has a name and his name is Osama Abdul Mohsen Al-Ghadab, a former coach for Al-Fotuwa SC, a Syrian football club in Deir Al-zoor city in Syria. He is identified by the Hungarian news website Index.hu. Osama was a prominent member of his society, popular Football coach and a board member of the Syrian Football Association. Due to his participation in the demonstrations against Syrian regime he was arrested and tortured. Then, when the Islamic state conquered his city he fled with his family.

Photo: Real Madrid Twitter

He later arrived in Germany with his son and was united with his other son Mohamed who was living in Munich. We at Humans of the Refuge were trying to find him a lawyer in Munich to help him apply for asylum, When members of Spain’s Cenafe national football coaching center found out through the media that Osama Abdul Mohsen had been a coach for a first-division club in Syria, they decided to help him by providing transport and a place to stay while he tries to regroup his family.

In another touching development in the story of Osama, his young son Zaid received the acclaim of thousands of football fans in the Spanish capital, as he was led on to the pitch by Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

Don’t judge the Refugees by their Smart Phones and Clothes

Stock photo

"It hurts, when I hear some people saying, look at the refugees, they have smart phones and nice clothes.

No we are not poor, we are fleeing war not poverty.

We don’t need handouts or benefits, we need work and an opportunity to prove ourselves, we will work hard and contribute to the societies that willing to give us a chance to start a new life.”

Says one refugee, who asked his name and identity to be withheld.

“We paid thousands of dollars to the smugglers to come here, if those borders are open, where this money will be spent? We will use it to rent houses instead of living in shelters, we will buy clothes, food, shoes you name it, and our money transactions will enrich the local economy.”

“Back home, I was an Engineer, I had my own company, I had my house in the suburb, my wife and my two beautiful children. When the war started, we fled, and I lost everything I built with hard work in 20 years. Now my wife and my two kids are living a miserable life in a refugee camp with no education, no healthcare or any hope for the future….[and] here I am, staring at this border, not sure if I can make it, or one day bring my wife and children over.”

“Where are the babies? Where are the babies?"

Photo by Dan Siegel

"Where are the babies? Where are the babies?" asks 76-year-old Dionysis Arvanitakis as he hands out rolls of bread and assorted pastries to refugees from the back of his bakery van on the Greek holiday island of Kos.

A long line of mostly young men from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea line up under the hot mid-morning sun, holding their hands out gently, as if standing for communion, below the thick stone walls of the Castle of the Knights that anchors the island's port.

Arvanitakis tears long loaves in two, and looks each person in the eye as they approach. A balding Syrian man pauses before receiving a piece, and reaches out to hold both sides of the baker's face, kissing him atop the head in gratitude.

Jean-Claude Junker, President of the European Commission, praised the Greek baker in his annual State of the Union address on September 9th to the European Parliament. In his speech focused on the gravest global refugee crisis since World War II, Juncker implored Europeans to "remember well that Europe is a continent where nearly everyone has at one time been a refugee."

"Europe is the baker in Kos who gives away his bread to hungry and weary souls," says Jean-Claude Junker, President of the European Commission in a nod to Arvanitakis. "This is the Europe I want to live in."

Arvanitakis knows deprivation himself, having grown up poor in the Peloponnese, the southern peninsula of mainland Greece. He told us that after difficult times there his family chose to migrate to Australia when he was 16. He was "always running, running" looking for work in his new country, and finally secured a job as a pastry chef.

In 1970, after saving enough money, he returned to Greece and landed on Kos, where his wife Evangelia was born and where he soon opened up his own bakery. He and his son Stavros have since grown the business to seven locations, now the largest bakery on Kos.

"Someone who has not starved, cannot put themselves in these people's shoes," Arvanitakis told the Greek media. "'It's 'us' and 'them' on the same island; two parallel lines, that somehow converge to the very meaning of the word 'human'."

Source: The Huffington Post

Please take the backpack off your shoulders

Photo by Boaz Arad

"Please take the backpack off your shoulders", we told the young Syrian refugee who was tending to his 8 month pregnant wife, whispering words of love in her ears and feeding her slowly with an apple he was given by aid workers.

"What backpack?" he said, somewhat confused.

He had totally forgotten the burden on his shoulders. We helped him put it on the ground. It must have weighed at least 50 kg, completely soaked with water.

The two had just arrived on the coast of Lesvos, packed like cattle with more than fifty other humans in a tiny, flimsy rubber boat. They crashed against a rocky piece of shore and had to climb up a steep cliff to reach safety.

The incredibly heavy backpack was not the only thing this caring husband carried with him. He was also carrying a plastic chair for his love.

We received this story by Boaz Arad, a photographer and Volunteer with IsraAid: The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid.

A month later, we received an update about this family from Boaz Arad :

Photo by Boaz Arad

"Exactly one month ago, a photo I took in Lesbos of a Syrian man feeding his 8-month pregnant wife with an apple went viral. It got shared so many times, that it had reached the couple in the picture themselves.

They contacted me over Facebook to let me know that they are safe and that they had reached their destination: Sweden.

Two days ago another update came in. Say hello to their little princess - Luna”

Baraa Antar, 10-Year-Old Teacher!

Photo by Marieke van der Velden

"I am Baraa Antar. I am 10 years old. I am the teacher for the children here. I am teaching them what I used to learn in my first class in school .

I am from East Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, Syria where I lived with my family in the ground floor of an apartment building. Because I like to be alone I had a bedroom for myself.

But it became very scary in the streets. Our building was close to the Al Fateh hospital and was under fire every day by the army. Everything in our neighborhood was destroyed. Including our building. We fled from the house and had no time to take anything along.

Thanks to my Uncle Ahmad, who is the leader at a small [refugee] camp in Lebanon, we could go there. Otherwise we would now be living in the streets.

Photo by Marieke van der Velden

When I had gotten a bit used to things here in the camp I noticed that all of the little children were playing all day long. But because there was no school they were not learning anything. Then my friend Nijameh and I got the idea to start our own school. The rocks became chairs and a piece of cardboard became the blackboard. And we are the teachers.

In the mornings there is school and we take turns giving math and language classes. And in the afternoon we are busy with the preparations for the next day’s lessons. The children really like coming to our school. But what I really miss is not being able to go to school myself, because there is not a real school. As a teacher I need to have some more knowledge of my own."

The Photos and the Story are by Marieke van der Velden, a photographer and documentary producer from Amsterdam, Netherlands.

You can watch the video of Baraa and other people in Marieke’s series “Out of Syria”

What Happened When the Refugees Stayed in my Home

Photo by Barbara Süss

“We were at Spielfeld in the Austrian border with Slovenia, distributing warm clothes and food. I was delighted with the smile of the little kids who felt warmer that night.

Then, I noticed this family, they seem lost and don’t know where to go. They wanted to go to Sweden, but they don’t know how.

The young man who is leading the family is only 22 years old, his name is Hussam, and they are from Syria. His father was hanged by Asad’s regime in Syria and he fled with his mother, sister and two brothers.

With little English, he explained to us that he was told to go back to the main refugees’ camp and wait for a bus. That bus had left long time ago.

It was cold and about to rain. The main camp is far away, the two scheduled buses had left earlier and no bus is coming tonight. I felt that I need to help this family but how?

Photo by Barbara Süss

Looking at the sky and their lost, tired eyes, I felt that I have a decision to make. They are coming home with me tonight.

Then a chill ran into my spine with a voice in my head warning me, I might be making a grave mistake that I will regret later. What my partner will say if I bring them to our new home? What my neighbors will say when they see them entering my house?

However, I shook my fear off and I decided to follow my guts, I will take them home, at least we all will be in a warm place to think clearly. I told Hussam, “I don’t know how I can help you, but would you like to come home with us?”

He spoke to his family and they agreed to come with us. My friend Nathalie Moser and I took the mother and the sister to my home, while my sister, Barbara stayed with Hussam and his brothers at the border till I returned with the car and took Barbara, Hussam and the other brothers in a second trip to my home.

At home, my two sons played with the two little brothers, they connect immediately kids need no language to understand each other. My partner Robert welcomed them and talked to Hussam and they started to get to know each other, while I sat with the women and we had tea. Later we did their laundry together and the 5 of them had a hot bath and fresh towels.

Photo by Barbara Süss

At the kitchen table, we had dinner, we talked a lot and laughed a lot. Even the broken English didn’t limit our human exchange. When hearts talk, no words are necessary.

Later at night, I turned my sons room into a bedroom, with 5 mattresses on the floor, my guests had a fresh comfy beds and a warm place to sleep after 6 weeks on the road. I wished them good night and closed the door.

I smiled to myself when I remembered that little voice in my head, which told me that I will regret my decision to take them home. In contrary to my fears, I had the best human experience ever, we laughed and had a good time, they touched my soul and let me feel that I am part of something bigger than myself, even with a tiny role, I participated in history tonight.

Photo by Barbara Süss

Early in the morning, they woke up, we had breakfast together, and then we drove them to the train station, where they will continue their journey to Germany and from there to Sweden. I couldn’t hold my tears when we said goodbye. I wish them the best in life and I hope they reach their destination safely.

What I have learned from my experience is this:

The fear I felt at the border when I was debating myself about wherever I take Hussam’s family to my home or not, was not my fear. It is the other people fear created by the media narrative and politicians talk.

Nothing scary about Hussam’s family. They are nice decent human beings who are courageous enough to endure extraordinary circumstances, most of us can never cope with. I have nothing but respect and admiration of them.”

This story by Evi Süss, she is from Leibnitz, Austria. She volunteers and helps the refugees at the Austrian border with Slovenia, with her sister Barbara, a photographer and yoga teacher, and their friend Nathalie Moser.

Born on the Beach of Lesbos Island, Greece

Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff for AFP/Getty Images

Lesbos- Greece, On October 15, 2015, a Syrian pregnant woman arrived on a flimsy rubber dinghy to the beach of Lesbos, Greece.

She lay helpless, motionless on the beach. IsraAID volunteers, Dr. Iris Adler and medic Malek Abu Grara rush to her aid and tried to move her to the local Hospital, but it was late, she already gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on the beach.

Photo by Boaz Arad/ISraAID

“The young mother (Hanan) and the baby born on the beach are recovering well at the hospital on the island of Lesbos. The Baby boy has been named Ahmed,” says Dr. Iris Adler, from IsraAID, an Israeli Forum for International Humanitarian Aid.

Dr. Iris Adler, 32, is a volunteer doctor from IsraAID, a non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides life-saving disaster relief and long term support to the refugees crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece each day.

Photo by Boaz Arad/ISraAID

On October 14, 2015 an eight-month-old baby who had drowned the previous day on the way to Lesbos and was buried on the island.

Once the funeral was over, Dr. Iris Adler, who had spent the day with the grieving mother, went straight back to work — giving medical aid to Hanan, a Syrian mother who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy (Ahmed) on the beach, right after getting off the boat she came on the hundreds of refugees arriving each day on the beach.

“And as fate would have it, a day that had started with sorrow and grief ended with joy and happiness,” says Adler.

For the Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis, who make up the vast majority of those arriving, having Israelis as a first contact in Europe can be unexpected.

“Before I came here, I worried that the refugees from Arab countries might feel uncomfortable in my presence, because I am from Israel. But I was surprised by how positively they have responded. When I told where I am from, many of them have embraced me and they were happy," says Adler.

When Hanan gave birth to baby Ahmed with the help of Dr. Adler, the tension between the Palestinians and the Israelis had been high in Jerusalem with ugly violence, yet in Lesbos everyone was working in harmony to give a refugee baby a chance in life.

“A Syrian baby born on the beach in Lesbos was welcomed into this world by an Israeli doctor and carried to safety by an Iraqi refugee. Not one person arriving on the beach this last week said anything about our nationalities. They were just happy to have people here to welcome them, and to look after them. Your hatred is not welcome here. There is another way, and we showed it together on the beaches of Lesbos,” says Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch.

When Generosity meets Integrity and Selfishness , a Story from The Jungle, Calais, France

Photo by Hana-Louise Denton

“ We were distributing the warm winter coats brought over by Damian Lambkin when an older gentleman came up to talk to me.

His English wasn't great, but he showed me a very expensive new coat he had been given and got me to understand that he had found €100 in the pocket so he had come to give it back!

There was a letter with the money, but he couldn't read it. I read it to him

The letter was from an English lady. She said she was ashamed of her country for not letting the refugees in.

She wanted to help him by sending him the money and she wanted him to know she cared and was thinking of him.

The man still tried to give me the money to share with the people because he recognized me and knew I helped the refugees! I told him to keep it and to keep the letter safe.

The man was called Ahmed and the lady did not sign her name but I am so glad these two wonderful connected in this way.”

This story is about a Kurdish refugee in “The Jungle”* in Calais, France and was shared by Clare Moseley, a volunteer from the UK at “Calais - People to People Solidarity - Action from UK” group.

Later Hana who photographed the letter said the English lady who donated the coat is named Sue.

* “The Jungle” or the “New Jungle” is a makeshift camp that housed more than 7,000 refugees, located close to the French entrance of the Eurotunnel near the port of Calais, France. Most of them are from Syria, Afghanistan, Eretria, Sudan, Iran and Iraq. They are desperately trying to jump on lorries and trains to reach the United Kingdom, where they will claim Asylum.

A Hug to Squeeze the Pain Away

Photo from Clay Mazing facebook page

“These refugee children and I are playing this game where they line up so I can hug them as best I can to squeeze out some of the pain they've had to endure.

The journey has been so hard on everyone. These kids aren't used to sleeping on the floor or not being able to sit in a damn chair.

We are moving now to the northern border of Macedonia. It's raining tonight. There's too much pain to hug away.

I don't know what to do about this rising fascism that's happening across the world. It feels like some people way up there are trying to make us hate each other.

It's impossible to stop terrorism by treating people like animals, by segregating them based on their religion.

We performed for these beautiful kids today at the closed border between Greece and Macedonia.

Tonight they will sleep in 10 degree weather because some of them might have been born Muslim hence probably terrorist.

There are thousands of polite generous friendly humans trying to escape tyranny but it's everywhere. These are not worthless people and they deserve to live without being terrorized.

Don't give in to the fear the racist media is trying to feed you. Spread the truth. People are loving and deserve to be cared for,” says Clay Mazing.

Clay Mazing is the founder of “Emergency-Circus”, an NGO from the United States which is composed of circus performers from around the globe, Emergency Circus administers inspirational circus shows and workshops to the hospitalized, the homeless, the imprisoned, and the undercircussed everywhere, according to their website.

I am not a Refugee, I am a Newcomer

Photo by Georg Moritz

“A girl introduced me as ‘Ahmad, a Syrian refugee’. I didn’t want to just suck up something like this. It sounded as if I was a thing. But I am Ahmad, from Syria. And I am living with my friends.

At first I didn’t want to come to Germany or to Europe and become a refugee. As a refugee, you lose the feeling of being a person. You lose yourself. You disappear in an anonymous crowd. People say (refugee) and generalize everything: the mentality, the nationality, the culture. But just look at us Syrians: We all have a personality – and a lot of potential!

For me the term (refugee) also means waiting. A lot of my friends just sit around in their camps and count the moments. They all had a good life before the war came and destroyed everything. Only when they get the residency they can look for a job and really arrive here, start a new life. Only then the word (refugee) will end for them.

There are people who think they know everything about me, when they hear I am a refugee. However, I have a past in Syria and hopefully a future in Germany. In Damascus, I was a normal student. I played the bass guitar and made music with a friend. I wrote lyrics and taught myself 3D design on the computer. Because of the war, almost all of my friends left Syria, and so did I eventually.

I am in Berlin for about four months now. I almost feel at home already, although I still get lost with my bike all the time. My goal is to master 3D design. I want to make video games. I want to shine!

I would prefer not to be called a refugee anymore. I would like to be called by my name. If it really needs a collective term for the people who are coming here, they should be called (newcomers).

I have used the term recently. I told a girl that at Schlafplatzorga that I help the newcomers. That really sounds more appealing than (refugee) does. Why don't you give it a try?”

Ahmad Al-Dali a (newcomer) from Syria, now he lives in Berlin, Germany.

Source: Der Tagesspiegel

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