GIP EVENT: Trailblazing : If Not You, Then Who?
Last Tuesday, February 19th, the Polytechnic community had the pleasure of introducing Ms. Sama Wareh, an art therapy enthusiast, humanitarian, and talented film maker who shared her quite surreal experiences providing aid to refugee families and schools in Lebanon. Wareh is an conflict-focused environmental professor at Cal State Fullerton who has devoted her life to helping and encouraging others to help Syrian families who have been caught in fire of the Syrian Civil War that started in 2011.
While Wareh has visited Syria with her family as a child, and began studying the inhumanity of the Syrian Massacre in 2011 as a film student, Wareh claims the tipping point in finding her motivation to help Syrian refugees came from her uncle, a homeopathic healer who revealed to her the intrinsic value of allowing things to take their natural course. In Wareh's case, she felt her natural course was to provide aid across the Atlantic Ocean to families she did not know but nevertheless felt an obligation to help. As she arrived to the airport one day to embark on a backpacking trip, she listened to her impulses and bought a ticket to Damascus, Syria.
When arrived in Syria, she did not have a specific plan in mind to help families recover from the ongoing war, but nevertheless she felt the need to help in any way she could. Accompanied by her camera, Wareh decided on filming a documentary for her senior thesis featuring the refugees she encountered on her journey. Despite how ready Wareh was to see the inhumanity in Syria, she explained how nothing could prepare her for the heartbreaking stories of families being torn apart by military drafting or by the Syrian government bombing their own people. She saw children who knew nothing except war, motivated to join the bloodlust massacre as soon as they were old enough. She saw a youth able to express a sentiment for war, but also unable to express themselves.
With funding she had raised in the U.S., Wareh provided impactful and personal relief to many refugees whether that was through securely funding schools to teach children, providing financial help for families struggling to pay their rent, funding art trauma programs for the youth, and relinquishing families of their hospital debts. Wareh informed us that there are currently three art schools that focus on continuing her goal to provide an artistic medium for children to express their trauma and worries. Despite her advancements in Syria, Wareh acknowledges that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, specifically in our local community. There are thousands of refugees in America who still feel isolated in their new communities. Wareh wants to help refugees have a smoother transition to their new lives in the U.S through her new school which aims to educate refugee families in California and provide the same kind of art trauma for children that she provided in Syria. In the end, Sama Wareh told the audience to not worry about how one's desire to help fits in with the rest of the world's efforts. She claimed that it is more important to discover "what makes you come alive," in the sense that we shouldn't wait for someone else to make the change we want.
While Wareh has visited Syria with her family as a child, and began studying the inhumanity of the Syrian Massacre in 2011 as a film student, Wareh claims the tipping point in finding her motivation to help Syrian refugees came from her uncle, a homeopathic healer who revealed to her the intrinsic value of allowing things to take their natural course. In Wareh's case, she felt her natural course was to provide aid across the Atlantic Ocean to families she did not know but nevertheless felt an obligation to help. As she arrived to the airport one day to embark on a backpacking trip, she listened to her impulses and bought a ticket to Damascus, Syria.
When arrived in Syria, she did not have a specific plan in mind to help families recover from the ongoing war, but nevertheless she felt the need to help in any way she could. Accompanied by her camera, Wareh decided on filming a documentary for her senior thesis featuring the refugees she encountered on her journey. Despite how ready Wareh was to see the inhumanity in Syria, she explained how nothing could prepare her for the heartbreaking stories of families being torn apart by military drafting or by the Syrian government bombing their own people. She saw children who knew nothing except war, motivated to join the bloodlust massacre as soon as they were old enough. She saw a youth able to express a sentiment for war, but also unable to express themselves.
With funding she had raised in the U.S., Wareh provided impactful and personal relief to many refugees whether that was through securely funding schools to teach children, providing financial help for families struggling to pay their rent, funding art trauma programs for the youth, and relinquishing families of their hospital debts. Wareh informed us that there are currently three art schools that focus on continuing her goal to provide an artistic medium for children to express their trauma and worries. Despite her advancements in Syria, Wareh acknowledges that there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, specifically in our local community. There are thousands of refugees in America who still feel isolated in their new communities. Wareh wants to help refugees have a smoother transition to their new lives in the U.S through her new school which aims to educate refugee families in California and provide the same kind of art trauma for children that she provided in Syria. In the end, Sama Wareh told the audience to not worry about how one's desire to help fits in with the rest of the world's efforts. She claimed that it is more important to discover "what makes you come alive," in the sense that we shouldn't wait for someone else to make the change we want.
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