Bana is a 12-year-old Syrian girl, who fled from Aleppo to Al Bab, northwest Syria with her family after the civil war broke out in Syria. Despite all the difficulties of the armed conflict and covid-19 pandemic, she is a dedicated student. She even started attending robot building courses; she studies hard in the hope of a bright future.
Building a better, more resilient future
The civil war in Syria broke out about 10 ten years ago, resulting in a humanitarian catastrophe: millions of people living in displacement, and many more requiring humanitarian services. The majority of these people are women and children.
The crisis escalated the vulnerability of girls to gender-based violence including harassment, child marriage, sexual exploitation and domestic violence.
A future of their own design
In Al Bab, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) supports safe spaces for women and girls providing a wide range of services such as specialised help for victims of gender-based violence. Furthermore, these places offer different activities to help stress-relief and the improvement of intellectual skills.
The safe space operated by Ihsan Relief and Development even offers robotics classes. It can be seen globally that women make up only 33% percent of science and technology researchers. The safe spaces supported by UNFPA have made it possible for hundreds of girls in northwest Syria to improve their abilities and skills even in the field of mechanics.
It is important to provide girls and women like Bana with the opportunity to study and improve so that they could be empowered to help bring peace to their home.