What makes someone abandon their home and travel across land and sea in often dangerous and unknown conditions for a hopefully better future? Sleman Shwaish, Refugee Coordinator for the British Red Cross gave us an insight by sharing his story as our guest speaker at the May meeting. Sleman, Kurdish in origin is from Quamish in NE Syria. He studied in Aleppo as an agricultural engineer but fled to the UK in 2012 after being forcibly conscripted to join the Army as the war took hold and started to ravage what had been a beautiful country. Sleman could not countenance fighting or killing his own people and had to make the difficult decision to leave his parents, his father a Pharmacist and his mother an English teacher.
Sleman travelled illegally through Turkey and Iraq eventually ending up in London, where he claimed and was granted asylum. After living in Sunderland he was offered a place to complete his education at Huddersfield University gaining a Master Degrees in Nutrition and Food Hygiene and in Public Health. Since then he has worked with and for the Red Cross and is now as a refugee service coordinator with a specific role with incumbent minors.
Some facts sadly highlighted were there are currently 450,000 Syrians killed or missing,12,500 women have been killed,2.75 million children are out of school,50% of health facilities have been closed and 35% only have access to unsafe water supplies. The future for Syrians and Syria as a whole continues to look bleak with little hope for those who remain there. Sleman raised our awareness about what it is like to be an asylum seeker, the difficulties, discrimination and isolation they face as well as the humanity that is offered.
For more information about the Harrogate & District Soroptimists’ Club and how to become a member visit sigbi.org/harrogate or email sihandd@hotmail.co.uk.
Meetings are held at The White Hart hotel on the first and third Wednesday at 7:30pm.What it