I am Nour Adil, I am thirty years old from Iraq. I am an Arabic language teacher and a civil activist in the field of...
In fact, I suffered from two points during my professional, practical and academic life. The first point was within the context of my family and...
Since we belong to the Libyan society, which is a socially conservative society and adheres to customs and traditions, some of which may be considered...
My name is Badia Hussain, and I am thirty years old. I have been practicing social work since 2015 in many fields. I started with...
The time when I felt that I was not being myself or needed to change my identity is a personal situation that happened to me...
I am here only to express the issue of Mihrim. In Yemen, women are not allowed to move from one governorate to another without the...
To be honest, I've always struggled with my gender identity. Specifically with all the boxes that society sets and social taboos. I always felt different,...
I am Mona al-Hilali from Iraq, southern Iraq, from Dhi Qar Governorate, from a small district called al-Shatrah district, a district distinguished by customs and...
My name is Shaima Bahzad, from Iraq, specifically from Baghdad. I am forty years old. I am an activist and blogger. I have an electronic...
Transcript of the interview (translated from Arabic): I am Imane Er Rami. I am a Moroccan researcher at the academic level holding a PhD at...
Women, in Yemeni society in particular, face many obstacles, and the events we went through in the recent period are an example of that. I...
Transcript of the interview (translated from Arabic): Most of the time there are many things I can't do. This is because of the fact that...
Transcript of the interview (translated from Arabic): Naturally, women are prevented from many things, especially if they belong to the category of marginalised women. For...
Transcript of the interview (translated from Arabic): Hello, my name is Yassine Karkich from the city of Tetouan in northern Morocco. I was born in...
Transcription de l'entretien: Pouvez-vous vous présenter, nom, âge, pays, profession actuelle et date du jour Je m'appelle Amina Amharech, je suis Amazigh, donc militante...
Transcription de l'entretien Pouvez-vous vous présenter, nom, âge, pays, profession actuelle et date du jour Oui alors je suis Amina Khaled, activiste associative, je suis...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
Carol Zakhour, 29, lives in Syria and works as a translator for television programmes. She considers the peaceful coexistence within Syria’s diverse population prior to...
Yara Al Chehayed is Syrian and currently lives in Lebanon. She tells us about her understanding of peaceful coexistence: I believe that peaceful coexistence and...
Jollanar Alyounes, 32, lives in Cyprus. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity as a Syrian: I consider myself a person of...
Hani Sukkar, 31, is from Homs and currently lives in Syria. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: Thinking about the issue...
Madeline Okian, 28, lives in Syria. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: I’m from Aleppo, from an Armenian family. I have...
Katia Mezaal, 43, lives in Germany. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: I’ve really struggled with the issue of identity and...
Simav Hassan, 29, is from Syria. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: Whenever the subject of identity comes up, I immediately...
Wiam Badrakhan, 42, lives in Atmeh Camp on the Syrian border. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity as a Syrian: My...
Mirella Abou Shanab, 31, is from Damascus, Syria. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: I remember how, before, I’d introduce myself...
Mahmoud Bazanko, 29, is from Damascus. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: I’m a photographer, and this is perhaps the personal...
Mohamad Kasas is in his early thirties and currently lives in Germany. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: I feel that...
Omar Ali Al Hussein is 35 years old and currently lives in Syria. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: I was...
Bezan Zarzar is 32 years old and currently lives in the Netherlands. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: I usually introduce...
Zafer Nahhas is in his early 30s and lives in the UK. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity as a Syrian:...
Mohammad Amin Bikdali is 23 years old and lives in Germany. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity as a Syrian: I...
Saghatel Bassil is 44 years old and currently lives in Sweden. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: My name is Saghatel,...
Jamil Alyou is 27 years old and currently lives in Germany. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: To determine who I...
Ronas Sheikhmous, 31, lives in Germany. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: The injustice and oppression practiced against the Kurdish people...
Mustapha Alouche, 50, lives in Germany. Here, he talks to us about how he defines his identity: I am Syrian by birth, but at the...
Hozan Ibrahim, 36, lives in Denmark. Here, he explains how he conceives of his identity: I’m a Syrian Kurd. Religious affiliation means nothing to me....
Reem Alshaar is a forty-something woman living in Damascus. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity: In my opinion, a person’s identity...
Elias Bitar is 52 years old and lives in Damascus. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: I’m like the majority of...
Dyala Ghanem is Syrian and currently lives in France. Here, she talks to us about how she sees her identity: I’m Syrian, but I also...
Kenan Nassar is Syrian and currently lives in French Guiana. Here, he talks to us about the factors that influence his sense of identity as...
Khaldoun, who prefers to give only his first name, is from the city of Homs in Syria, and currently lives in Germany. Here, he talks...
Haneen Ahmad is a Syrian woman from Homs, currently living in Damascus. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity as a Syrian:...
Mozna Bilal lives in Damascus. Here, she talks to us about the factors that influence her sense of identity as a Syrian: I’ve been living...
Bashar Azzam is a Syrian living in Suwayda. Here, he talks to us about how he understands his identity as a Syrian: First and foremost,...
Abdallah Aljaddan is from Syria and currently lives in Damascus. Here, he talks to us about how the conflict and immigration from Syria has affected...
Mohamad Çiçek is Syrian and currently lives in Sweden. Here he talks to us about what influences his sense of identity as a Syrian: Very...
Hazem Youness is Palestinian-Syrian, currently living in Sweden. Here, he introduces himself in terms of his sense of identity: If you’d asked me this question...
Rim Mahmoud is a journalist from Syria. Here, she introduces herself in terms of her Syrian identity: I present myself as a person living in...
Dara Kurdo is Syrian-Kurdish and currently lives in Denmark. Here, he talks to us about his identity and what constitutes it: The elements of my...
Yahya Hashem is a Syrian actor currently living in the Netherlands. Here, he talks to us about his sense of identity: I am a believer...
Nour Nasrah is a writer and translator living in the city of Tartus. Here she talks to us about the elements that make up her...
Hanadi Zahlout is from Syria, currently living in the south of France. Here, she talks to us about her Syrian identity: The things that represent...
Lina (not her real name) is Syrian and lives in Damascus. Here, she talks to us about her sense of identity and how it was...
Reem Maghribi has parental roots in Syria, Libya and Palestine. She currently lives in Cyprus. Here, she talks to us about her identity: It changes...
Diala Fedawi is Syrian and currently living in Germany. Here, she talks to us about her Syrian identity: As a person, I have no problem...
Yasmine Atassi is from Syria and currently living in The Netherlands. Here, she talks to us about her Syrian identity: Because of family circumstances, I...
Fareed Yaghi is a Syrian poet living in Germany. Here, he talks to us about his Syrian identity and what impacts it: For me, the...
Maha Alhayek is Syrian and currently lives in Cyprus. We spoke to her about her sense of identity: I am an Arab, Syrian woman, and...
Mohammed Aljborey is Syrian and originally from the town of Hasake. He is currently residing in Turkey, but commutes regularly to and from the Syrian...
Hassan is from Tartus, Syria. Here, he talks to us about the factors that he feels have had an effect on his Syrian identity: The...
Alaa Yagoub is Palestinian-Syrian and currently lives in Sweden. Here, he introduces himself by talking about his identity: As a Syrian-Palestinian, the issue of identity...
Roudi Sulaiman is a writer and poet currently living in the Netherlands. Here, she speaks to us about her sense of identity: When I introduce...
Azad Zaatar, one of the trainers for the awareness-raising campaign entitled, “Speak, We Are With You,” to combat gender-based violence, evaluates the work undertaken by...
Aya Hashim Esmaeel is a media activist. Here, she talks to us about her experience helping implement two workshops with the Minority Women’s Forum in...
Beirut resident Zainab AlMadhoun was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and...
Dr. Farooq Klaash is the General Supervisor of the festival to celebrate the National Day of Tebu Culture in Libya, which was sponsored by the...
May Gah Allah works at the Kunouz Nubia Foundation. Here, she talks to us about the project to promote a culture of peace and acceptance...
Sameh Nasim, from the Masr Tobia workshop (an offshoot of the Ibrahimia Media Center), talks to us about their project to promote a culture of...
Rabea Al-Kadri talks about an activity aimed at women in Lebanon: We are a group of women in Lebanon who took some courses with the...
Mahmoud Aboulhassan is the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the Qalb Masr Foundation for Education and Development. Here, he talks about the organization’s project on...
Sameh Sabet is the director of the Qalb Masr Foundation for Education and Development. Here, he talks about a collaborative project on peaceful coexistence that...
Ban Najeeb is the Assistant Director of ‘Women Minorities Forum’ in Iraq . Here, she introduces the outline and objectives of their project on the...
Youssef Aroog, from the Mediterranean Youth Foundation for Development, talks about the fraternity document project they worked on in partnership with a number of other...
Abdallah is 34 years old and lives in Italy. This is a translation of the transcript of his recorded story: "My name is Abdullah Huseen...
Father Sharbel Issa discusses the program implemented by the Church of Our Lady of the Shepherds in Beit Sahour, Palestine, in 2020, in support of...
Ahmad Elsheikh is 41 years old and lives in Germany. This is a translation of the transcript of his recorded story: "I am Ahmad Khader...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
Waleed Kamal is a staff member at the Success House of Yemen, which implemented a project, in partnership with the Citizenship Center in Jordan, entitled...
Amjad Job is 32 years old and lives in Germany. This is a translation of the transcript of his recorded story: "My name is Amjad...
Faouzi Bin Abdelkarim Filali is the representative of the Moroccan Scouts Organisation in Fez. Here, he talks about the Delegation’s project to support African students:...
Engineer Olfa Sahouki is responsible for the investment project at the Tunisian municipality of Bou Salem. Here, she talks to us about partnering up with...
Abdulwahab Tareel is 27 years old and lives in Cyprus. This is a translation of the transcript of his story: "I am Abdulwahab Tareel. I...
My name is Tesnim Al Khatib. I am aged 34 and I have been resident in Denmark since about 2017. I am a graduate of...
Abdulla Malkni is the General Director of the Tebu Studies Center. Here he talks about the festival to celebrate the National Day of Tebu Culture...
Maya Dayoub is the Partner Relationship Coordinator at the Syriac St. Ephrem Patriarchal Development Committee in Syria. Here, she talks about the Committee’s participation in...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
Mohamed Ghanem is from Peace Now’s regional office in Egypt. Here, he speaks to us about the dialogue project built around the Document of Human...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
We spoke with Ola Aljounde from Women Now for Development to learn more about their partnership with the collective ‘All for One’ in Lebanon and...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
The transcript of this interview, and all the interviews within this collection, have not yet been translated to English. Should you have the capacity to...
Reem, from Arbin, Syria, talks to us about joining the awareness-raising campaign entitled, “Speak, We’re With You,” organized by the Syriac St. Ephrem Patriarchal Development...
Naima Gharbi is the executive director of the organization Voices of Youth of Krib in Tunisia. Here, she introduces the Women’s Forum for a Culture...
Yassin Joulal, coordinator of the Moroccans of the World Youth Committee, talks to us about the work they undertook: For its part in battling the...
I am Rana Thuraya Alnakshabandi, born in Damascus 1958. I may seem very old but I think in our lifetime we get to live many...
My name is Anis Hamdoun. I’m Syrian, 35 years old, living in Berlin, Germany. I’m a director and writer, and I teach acting in several...
My name is Anna Hannah Ibrahim. I’m from Damascus, Syria. I graduated from the Media Faculty at Damascus University in 2005. I was full of...
I am Ruba Hammud from Homs, Syria. I am a lawyer, and I used to be a journalist who raised awareness of Syrian women's rights,...
I am the Iraqi poet Ayfaa Amen Alasadi. I was born in Baghdad, am in my thirties and I currently reside in France. I arrived...
My name is Emad Abu Ahmad and I was born in Hama in the early 1990's. In early 2011, I decided to study English literature...
My name is Ahmad Mousa Matar, a Palestinian from Jerusalem. I was born on 28/3/1975 in Baghdad, where I used to work as a lawyer....
I am Jamil Jamal al-Din from Syria. I am proud to be from Damascus, Al-Midan neighbourhood. I am 33 years old and currently work in...
I am Mahdi Al-Nasir, from Deir Al-Zour Syria and I used to live in Damascus. I worked with the Syrian press from 2008, then I...
Sara is 31 years old and lives in Germany. This is a translation of the transcript of her recorded story: "My name is Sara Alagha....
Majida is a 52-year old chef in a successful family-run Syrian restaurant that opened two years ago in central Marseille. The family is originally from...
Caroline is a 41-year old from Damascus. Her mother is Armenian and her father is from Hawash. She was imprisoned in Syria for one month...
Muntaha lives in Switzerland. This is a translation of the transcript of her recorded story: "I am Muntaha from Homs, a city that witnessed the...
Abdallah Al-Khateeb is a 30-year old Palestinian Syrian. He was a social and political activist in Syria and remains so in Germany, where he moved...
My name is George, I’m 31 years old, from Syria. I graduated with a degree in oil, petroleum, and gas engineering and went to Germany...
Dalal Adi from Hama is 23 years old and she fled Syria by land and boat to Turkey and Greece, losing track of the two...
I am Dea Saffan. I am 25 years old and was born in 1994 in Deirezzor, where I lived for almost seven years before moving...
I am Haysam Youssef and I’m 55 years old. I left Syria in 1989. I was in my fourth year studying law at the University...
I’m Sara Ahmar, from Syria. I’m 30 years old and currently living in Germany. I was like so many young men and women from Syria...
Nour Al-Hariri is 25 years old and currently lives outside Berlin with her husband and children. She is originally from Deraa, and arrived in Germany...
My name is Jouman Mohammad. I’m 50 years old, originally from Iraq and now a UK citizen. I live in London, and previously in my...
Firas Al Younis is an accomplished engineer who lives in Berlin. He is from a family of 10 children, and he and his brother are...
My name is Gona Saed. I’m from Iraqi Kurdistan and I came to the UK twenty-one years ago as a political refugee with my three-year-old...
Mikaela is a 48 year-old journalist. She had trouble finding a job and realised she needed a niche. She considered Russian but there were many...
My name is Mohammad Abdlrazak. I’m a Syrian citizen from the village of Kiljibreen in Aleppo governorate, born in 1970. I came to Cyprus at...
I’m Dan, and I’m 29 years old. I’m a Syrian living in London, UK. I come from a village in northern Syria where I lived...
My name is Amanj Mohammad, from Iraq. I came to Sweden around 19 years ago for political reasons, as a political asylum-seeker. I didn’t have...
I’m Khalil Jabo, a Kurd from Afrin. I arrived in Denmark at 2013, and sometime later I was granted a residency permit. When I was...
My name is Omar, and I’m 33 years old. I’m a Syrian writer and journalist. I’d basically decided to move to Cyprus back in 2008,...
My name is George, I was born in Damascus in 1993. I began my degree in Pharmacy at the University of Aleppo. Then, when the...
Manal is from Iraq. She lives in Norway. This is a translation of the transcript of her recorded story: "I am Manal from Iraq and...
Adnan Alali is 36 years and lives in Germany. This is a translation of the transcript of his recorded story: My name is Adnan Al...
My name is Loujean and I currently reside in London, UK. I come from Syria, specifically Damascus. What made me emigrate was the war and...
I am Aya, a Syrian from Damascus. I am 30 years old. Although I studied business administration, I work in the field of media. I...
Sarah is a young Syrian-American girl who moved from Turkey to Lebanon in early 2016 in order to work in the civilian relief and development...
Amina fled from Syria with her three children and ended up in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut where she had a difficult time because...
Abu Hashim has visited Syria every week since his early childhood days. Therefore, he understands the nature of Syrian society well because of the cultural...
When she arrived in the city of Tripoli in Lebanon in 2010, Shaima’ al-Hazwani began her psychology studies at the Lebanese University. She did not...
Ahmed* was born in 1968 to a Lebanese father and a Syrian mother. He lived for about 20 years in Damascus before returning and settling...
Ma’ruf al-Qallab was born in 1977 in the southern province of Daraa. He studied Law at the University of Damascus and travelled several times to...
Before he came over to Lebanon, Baraa Serajeddi thought that Lebanese people lived the way MTV [a Lebanese TV channel] depicted – everyone was comfortable...
Hani al-Rstum moved into Lebanon in 2008. He studied medicine for three years at the University of Balamand in Tripoli before deciding to change his...
Sally is 24-years old and is from a village near Tartous. Her husband was tortured and imprisoned for a year on two separate occasions in...
A single mother with two nationalities, Ghaid Hashemi defines herself through her religion and education. She says, "I am a woman, I am a Muslim,...
Afraa Batous is 33 years old. She is from Aleppo but lived for a time in Damascus then Beirut before moving to Germany in 2016....
Nadia El-Haj, 55 years old, is originally from Damascus but has lived in Stockholm since 1991. Currently, she does not work but she used to...
Alex is a 38-year old Swedish journalist who studied Arabic and has worked in the Middle East, including in Syria, since 2008. She first travelled...
After working in the United Arab Emirates for a number of years, Khaled Taame came back to Damascus and began working as a sound designer...
Najwa Sufi was born in 1944 in Al-Anazah village located between Banyas and Tartous on the Syrian coast. She moved between several towns and cities due...
In 1948, Akram Atweh was an infant when his family left the city of Safad in Palestine to seek refuge in southern Lebanon. Later, they...
Ramzya Sarhan was born in 1969 in Damascus, where she spent her childhood. She then moved to Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib Governorate as her father...
Nour Owais grew up in Yarmouk, a camp for Palestinian refugees just south of Damascus. She completed both her elementary and middle school education at...
Mohamad Noureldin began working at the Military Works branch of the Ministry of Defense in Homs in 1992. His role was assistant to one of...
Ansaf Nasr grew up in a village in as-Suwayda Governorate. She finished elementary school in the village, then stopped going to school because there were...
After graduating from secondary school, Aqeel Ahmad applied to the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University, but he wasn’t accepted. He enrolled at the...
Ahmad Mazhar Sad'du graduated from secondary school in 1980 and moved out of the city of Jericho located in Idlib's countryside. He then went on...
Maryam Hallak got married at the age of seventeen, then, with her husband’s encouragement and her mother’s assistance with childcare, went on to continue her...
Basima Jabri was born in 1975 to a Damascene father and a Lattakian mother. Her father died one year after her birth. She lived with...
Although Arda Kashkashian has been living in Lebanon for several years and has received Lebanese citizenship, Aleppo still occupies a special place in her heart,...
Mohamad Sharbaji was born in 1961 in Daraya, a city with a conservative character. Since the 1960s, the majority of its inhabitants had cultivated the...
Samer Kozah was born in Bab Touma, one of the historical neighborhoods in Old Damascus. During the 1950s, people started to neglect their homes, their...
After finishing middle school in 1972, Sobhi Dassoki moved from al-Raqqa to Homs to study in the teacher training institute. Four years later, he went...
Miral Zahed was born in the city of Homs in 1979 to a Syrian father and Lebanese mother. She describes Homs as a small city,...
Ahlam Nazal was born in 1968 in al-Silmiya city in the Hama countryside, where most of the people were poor. “The majority of the population...
Akram al-Khatib was born in 1969 in the city of Raqqa. He went to school there and then moved to Aleppo to study at the...
Abdallah Yousef Turkmani was born in 1948 in the citadel district of Lattakia city, an old neighborhood populated by Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Christians and Armenians....
For the first ten years of his life, Omar Jibaiy had only ever met his father through the bars of a prison cell. He was...
Nibal Zeitoune moved to Damascus to attend university, obsessed with the wish to break free from what she calls “the shell,” of her rigidly conservative...
Elham Hakki was born in 1960 in al-Raqqa city. Her father was from al-Raqqa and her mother from Homs. Her father, Mohamed Naji Hakki, established...
Najah Kowaf was only a child when Hama first witnessed violence and clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the ruling regime in 1964. The city...
Jaber Al Choufi was born in 1947 in the village of Sama al-Bardan in rural Damascus. He says that his grandfather was the mayor of...
An English translation of this story will be posted soon.
Grace Said was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Kamal Abu Sahyoun was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study...
Mohamad Khamasy was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Mohamad Ahmad was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Taxi driver Mohamad Mousa was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and...
Taleb Kabbara was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Hussain Zayd was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Fatima Abd Alsaleeby was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study...
A former caterer Nahed now owns a salon. She was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods"...
Raya Alomari was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to document and study the...
Beirut resident and Palestinian Mahmoud Alhaj was among the twelve residents of Lebanon to be interviewed as part of the project "Lebanon Livelihoods" that aimed to...
Abdelhakim Amer Taweel is a nuclear engineer born, raised and based in Tripoli. His father owned a piece of land in Tripoli measuring approximately one...
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Jamal Abdelmotaleb was born in 1956 in the town of Bani Walid. His family moved to the capital when he was a youngster, and he...
Maayouf Massoud Halasa is from the town of Kabaw in the Nafusa Mountains in the west of Libya. He was a graduate of law and...
Dheiba Diaf is the widow of Othman Ali Zirti, with whom she had ten children. Zirti was born in 1934 in the area of Tripoli...
Amina Faytouri Jornazi, known to her friends as Mona, opened her home to a young fighter from Derna named Saleh Moadib. Moadib was a fighter...
Faisal Moftah Oraygeeb was on holiday in Tripoli during Gaddafi’s coup of 1969. He had expected to return to the Choueifat boarding school in Lebanon...
Wafia Hassan Gantary and her husband Abdelsalam Abunaama watched the revolution of 2011 unfold from their home, discouraging their seven sons and three daughters from...
When Najat Rasheed Kikhia’s brother Mansour resigned form his post as Libyan ambassador to the UN in 1980, the whole family bore the brunt of...
Tamam Baroudi was born in Hama in 1955 to an affluent family. His father owned several foreign agencies that sold cars and agricultural land. His...
Ibrahim Ezz grew up in a conservative Damascus neighborhood before moving to Masaken Barzeh, a relatively modern precinct populated by a mixture of people who...
Jamil had been politically active since he was in high school and he contributed to the establishment of a political oppositional movement. At one point...
Mazen al-Kahhal grew up in a Damascene family of pharmacists. His grandfather, who had studied pharmacology in Turkey and founded the Pharmacists' Syndicate in Damascus,...
Safwan Jamo was a young boy when he started going the library at the Cultural Center in Armanaz city in the Idlib countryside. He didn’t...
Basil al-Sorouji was born in Damascus in 1963. He spent the first two years of his life in Algeria then moved with his family to...
Elham Mahfod was born in al-Silmiya city in Hama Governorate in 1948. Her father, Khodr Mahfod, was a revolutionary who took part in the Great...
Ayman Abo Hachem was born in 1969 in the Handarat Palestinian Refugee Camp north of Aleppo. The camp was established in the early 1960s and...
Samira Bahow was born in 1947 in Aleppo to a middle-income family. Although they were illiterate, her parents strongly encouraged her to pursue her education....
Abdallah Burgul moved with his family to the city of Saraqib, his mother’s hometown, in 1953. However, his love and attachment to Kafr Nabl always...
Hala al-Nasser grew up in Raqqa province, where she completed her primary and preparatory education. She then moved to Hama in order to continue her...
Ihab al-Said was born in 1965 in Qadisiyah village in Al-Haffah region of the Latakia province. Ihab says that Al-Haffah community was composed of three...
Jinan al-’Awwad was born in 1958 in al-Mayadin in Deir ez-Zor, a town on the banks of the Euphrates, about 45 kilometers away from the...
Nada* was born in 1974 to a father from as-Suwayda' province and a mother from Aleppo. Nada grew up in Aleppo, studied there and then...
Bakir Mohammad Ali was born in 1974 to a Turkmen family living in the village of Shamarin in the northern A'zaz countryside near the Turkish...
Abdel Kader Abdel-Hay's interest in football began in his early childhood. His skills compared to others in his age attracted the attention of the school's...
Murshid al-Nayef was born in 1968 in the town of Tal Rif'at in the northern Aleppo countryside. He completed school there, and then went to...
Ousama* was born in 1967 in the Bab Hud neighborhood of Homs to a middle-income well-known ancient family. Bab Hud is one of the ancient neighborhoods...
Abu Reda al-Maydani grew up in the Damascene district of al-Midan, which extended from Bab Musalla to the end of al-Ashmar Square up to the...
Kibriya’ Al-Sa’ur grew up in the city of Yabroud in rural Damascus, a city known for the beauty of its nature, its large proportion of...
Ahmed Aisha grew up in a village in the A’zaz region of rural Aleppo. In the early eighties, he moved into the city of Aleppo...
Wafaa Mohamad was born in Saraqeb in the countryside of Idlib, a city famous for its diverse agricultural crops such as grains, olives and cotton....
Hafez Karkut was still a child when he moved from As-Suwayda' province to Damascus, where his brothers were studying at the university. He lived in...
Jamil al-Kayyem was born in the city of Palmyra, a city distinguished by its rich historical and archaeological sites. Most of the city's population worked...
Abdel Razzak El-Laz was born in 1960 in the eastern countryside of Aleppo to an educated and middle-income family. His mother worked as an educator...
Rami al-Assaf was born in 1977 in Deir ez-Zor, east of Syria. He grew up in Al-Tabaqa in Raqqa province, a working class city whose...
Adeeb Alshalaf grew up in the neighborhood of Baba Amr in Homs, a neighborhood of both rural and urban character since it had been part...
Abdul Bary Othman was born in 1962 in the Kurdish village of al-Kouwa in Al-Hasakah governorate, 19 km from Qamishli city. He lived a simple...
Mariam Abdelrahman Zakaria grew up in the city of Deir Atiyah in the Damascus countryside. The city is famous for its beauty, infrastructure and outstanding...
Hasan il-Nefi was raised by a modest rural family in Manbij city in the countryside of Aleppo. The city was a mix of rural and...
Mahmoud Al Wahab was born in 1945 to a very poor family in the city of al-Bab in rural Aleppo. He says that al-Bab was...
Marwan Abdul Razak was born in 1954 in the city of Masyaf in Hama governorate, but hails from the village of Maryamin in the district...
Nazmeye Hasan grew up in as-Salhiya neighborhood of Damascus. She stayed there until 1975, when she moved with her family to al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood, south...
Samir Nashar was born in Aleppo in 1945. Like many of his generation, he says he was influenced by the romantic socialist ideas that prevailed...
Mohamed Berro was arrested in 1980 because of a leaflet he was carrying that goes back to the “Fighting Vanguard” or the military wing of...
On the day she was born in 1953, Sabrie Abtini’s grandmother was angry because the newborn wasn’t a male. She left the house feeling upset...
Amina Nona started her own clinic in Haritan, a town in the countryside north of Aleppo, at a time when the area lacked midwives or...
Majed Khaled Al Alloush was born in 1959 in the city of Deir Ezzor. He describes it as one of the biggest cities in eastern...
Wafaa Affas grew up in Armanaz in the Idlib countryside, where she studied and finished high school. She took the high school exam in Riyadh,...
Hayat al-Bitar was born and raised in the city of Latakiya, until she was married at the age of seventeen and moved with her husband...
Ehsan Hammadeh was raised by a poor family in Aleppo. He went to middle school then enlisted in the army in 1967 so that he...
Reem Seifeddine was raised in a middle-class family in the village of Jusiya, located within Hama Province. She demonstrated academic excellence early, during elementary school,...
Nada Abdul Kader was born in 1989 to a huge family living in Aleppo and originating from the countryside south of Aleppo. Her parents were...
Anas Abbas’ father taught him how to read and write at a very early age. By the time he was four years old he was...
Firas Younes began his political activity at an early age in Syria. In 1978 at the age of 15 he joined the Communist Labor Party...
Miryam Boushi was born in the town of Binnish in Idlib province, and began working in the fields, planting the crops and harvesting them from...
Dana Yacoub, 34, recalls the gatherings of the Circassian community, held yearly on the seventeenth of April in the two villages of Bariqa and Bi’ir...
Fouad Fouad enrolled in medical school at Aleppo University in 1978, around the same time as the remaining social, cultural and political student movements were...
Shamweel Warda attended elementary school in the village of Qabar Shamiyah, one of the Assyrian villages located on the banks of the Khabur River in...
Hasna Assaf recalls some of the customs and traditions practiced by the Turkmen in the village of Talf in rural Hama, where there was a...
Amira Ajmiye doesn’t remember her birthdate. She was born in the city of Talkalakh in rural Homs province, at the time when it was under...
Fatima Hassan grew up in difficult circumstances, abused and beaten constantly by her brothers. She married a Palestinian-Jordanian man at the age of 20, who...
Mahmoud Abu Misto was born in 1943 in the city of Al-Zabadani in the Rif Dimashq province His family was poor and subsisted on agriculture....
Naaman Haj Bakri is a theater actor from Latakiya Province. He began his artistic journey at the age of thirteen, acting and singing in school...
Yehya Ghiryani grew up in the Qaterji neighborhood in Aleppo, a working-class neighborhood where most of the inhabitants came from rural areas, though there were...
Khalil Ibrahim’s village in rural Aleppo is only about fifteen kilometers away from the Turkish border. It is bound on the north and east by...
“The pharmacist who needs ten years to establish a life for himself in a rural area can achieve the same result in only one or...
Ahmad Miz’s mother died of bone cancer when he was only three years old, leaving him and his two older brothers behind. Ahmad’s mother had...
Khaled Habood was born in Hasakah, in northeastern Syria. Whilst his family was Arab they adopted many of the customs of the multiple inhabitants of...
Nadia Saeed grew up in the village of Ras al-Ain in the Qalmoun area in Rif Dimashq Province. She lived a simple, rural life within...
Jamila Amin flips through her journal, recalling the beautiful days spent at her grandmother’s house in Syria’s Quneitra Province. “That was the only time where...
“When I was little, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I would repeat my father’s words, who wanted...
George* talks about the relationship he had with his Jewish neighbors while growing up in Aleppo. “I don’t really remember much about the relationship we...
Elham Farhat grew up in a modest family living in the Rashidieh camp for Palestinian refugees, just outside of Saida in southern Lebanon. Her parents...
Rima Oshana recalls some of the different social occasions celebrated by the Assyrians in Hassake province in eastern Syria. The Assyrian New Year, for example,...
Ahmad Abdel Aal was born in 1954 in the village of Jubata ez-Zeit in Quneitra province. He lived there with his family until the age...
Toufic Mohamad recalls his childhood in his village in rural Hassake, how he would play in the fields with the other children while their fathers...
Najah Ahmad grew up in one of the villages in Suweida province. Her father worked in Kuwait and Libya, then as an art therapist in...
“I was really happy during my time at university,” says Sana, “despite the anxiety we felt because of the general atmosphere of fear and inhibition....
For the first five years of her life, Joumana Khamousie lived in Beirut. Her mother is Palestinian-Lebanese and her father Syrian, from Hama. Her father...
Abdelsalam Hamdan is from Deir Ez-Zor Province. A lack of general education in the area along with local customs that promoted early marriage, resulted in...
Abeer Idriss was born to a Sunni father and an Ismaili mother in the town of Masyaf, part of Hama Province in Syria. “Most of...
Maryam Darweesh was born in the town of Al-Sakhna in the Syrian desert, located between the provinces of Homs and Deir ez-Zor. Al-Sakhna is a...
Hussain Abdel Rahman was only seventeen when he one day met a man who had suffered from a psychological disorder since the age of seven....
Sami Abu Halkha fell in love with music as soon as he opened his eyes to the world. By the age of fifteen, he already...
Nour Shamaa grew up in a conservative, working-class neighborhood in Aleppo. He began attending classes on Islamic Sharia law at one of the local mosques...
Mohamad Khalaf belongs to the Al-Uqaydat tribe, made up of an alliance of different clans living in Homs and Deir ez-Zor provinces, as well as...
Kheiro Hammoud Khasem learned the basics of farming from his father and older brother, and began working the land when he was only 8 years...
Mohamad Dibo was born in the town of Al-Anaza, part of the city of Baniyas on the Syrian coast. Mohamad says that the prevailing outlook...
Right from the very start, Walaa Mousa was unhappy about getting engaged. She wanted to finish university first and get her diploma in Arabic literature....
Mira grew up in a poor neighborhood on the edge of Damascus, dubbed Dammar al-Balad (which tellingly translates into “the country was destroyed”). She never...
Adnan Farmelli’s childhood was greatly impacted by his parents’ separation. Their constant fighting was compounded by his mother’s bad health, and Adnan and his sisters...
Architect and businessman Ahmad Amer Shbareq was born in Aleppo, and marked his entrance to the business world in 1990 when he opened an embroidered...
Bilal Ahmad Ghazal was just twelve years old when he began going out to sea to learn cage fishing, encouraged by his friend and brother....
Aebesh Khalil was born in 1962 in Afrin, in rural Aleppo. He was brought up in the general atmosphere of coexistence and tolerance that prevailed...
Hala Al-Mashhadani grew up in a simple rural community, in a village named Abu Houri, in the Qaysar area of Homs province. At twelve, she...
Zeina* was born in Sweida Province in southern Syria. She studied Business Administration and Psychology at university and specialized in the rehabilitation of those with...
Malek Satoof was born in Sheikh Alwan village in eastern rural Aleppo. “My village is quite remote,” he says, “far from the main highway. Most...
Mustafa al-Shaykh Fattouh graduated from the Teacher’s Institute in the city of Homs in 1989. The educational system at the time required new teachers to...
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