Forget Me Not is a solutions-based multimedia series focusing on child refugees who’ve fled from Syria into neighboring countries for shelter and struggle to adjust in a new atmosphere. Our goal is to bring the refugee crisis back into the foreground by raising awareness through the documentation of mental health and education accessibility for refugee children, intimately told through personal profiles and accounts from the children and the individuals helping them.

https://www.facebook.com/forgetmenotseries/

The Creators: Jessica Worthington and Virginia Tieman

We met at San Francisco State University the fall of 2012 and quickly discovered a shared passion for children and advocacy reporting. While the war in Syria continues and the scale of displacement increases, we sense an obligation as journalists to not only bear witness and document the plight of refugees, but also point to solutions. There's urgency for truth and unbiased reporting; we're determined to build upon that platform.

The Project:

Advocacy journalism with NGOs and nonprofits has proven to be very successful. It’s essential to offer hope, to go beyond documenting the conflict and produce work that also sparks action and motivates people to get involved.  As the creators of Forget Me Not, we'll be traveling to multiple countries where large populations of refugee children reside to focus on the children's needs and engage with the community members and organizations whose intention is to heal and educate these children, while also exposing their limitations without the necessary help and awareness from others. Psychological trauma (PTSD) is 10 times more prevalent among Syrian children and as many as 500,000 refugee children in Turkey are not receiving an education. We've met orphans who become incredibly afraid every time they see an airplane in the sky for fear of being bombed and children placed in classrooms based on their age, without consideration to the fact that they went years without an education because of the war and aren't capable of meeting expected performance levels. It's imperative for the future of Syria that these children receive the appropriate help they need to thrive. Mental health and education go hand in hand. Forget Me Not is invested in changing their world for the better.

Funds:

Until now, this project has been self-funded. We're asking for help from others so that we can continue to work independently, free from any contracts with media outlets. In many instances this past year, Western media has failed miserably at journalism. While there's been some incredible reporting by very brave journalists,  it seems to get buried by fear mongering and propaganda created by a mass media machine that values sensationalism over truthfulness. It's of utmost importance to us that we maintain the integrity of this piece and the message of those who've opened up their hearts and doors to share these stories. We need this amount to support expenses that come with working full-time on a documentary. The funds will cover moving overseas in March, travels back to S.E. Turkey for follow-up reporting, housing, living expenses, residency permits, camera gear, insurance, editing software, fixers, translators, drivers, and production costs. Leftover funds will be strictly allocated toward the next section of our ongoing series that will begin next year in Iraq.

Highlights:

“Seriously, the final decision is in the hands of the U.N. the U.S. and Europe. Right now 50 people are being killed. If the war stopped right now, in this moment, 50 lives would be saved. These people I’ve mentioned aren’t just numbers in the hands of politicians to be used in negotiations.” - Dr. Hamza Diab, an orthopedic surgeon at the Will Steps Rehabilitation Centre in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Reem Anas, 5, is fitted for a prosthetic leg at the Will Steps Rehabilitation Centre in Gaziantep on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016. Anas lost her mother, sibling, and left leg in late January after a bomb was dropped on her home in Termanin, the Idlib province of Syria.  She is one of the many patients seen by Dr. Hamza Diab.

“The other day we gave them toys to play with and there was a doll. So these children they took the doll, they took a box, they made a funeral. And they had…they had a funeral. I’ve never seen children play like that.  And they were shouting stuff that people say in funerals and they were carrying this body around the classroom…. All the children, they all have things like that happening and the more you interact with them the more the stories come out of what they’ve been through.” - Shahla Raza, founder and program director for Yusra Community Center.

"I miss a lot of things about Syria, like the study of my language and finding good friends.... it was hard for me to leave my friends and family. " - Hasan Abu Alula, 15, who worked 12-hour days in a textile factory in Istanbul before returning to school.

Quick Facts:

~Nearly 11 million Syrians have left Syria, including some 4.8 million who have been forced to seek safety in neighboring countries.

~There are currently 2,733,655 documented Syrian refugees in Turkey.

~More than five years after it began, the war has killed a reported 470,000 people.

~More than half of all Syrian refugees are under the age of 18. Most have been out of school for months, if not years. About 35,000 school buses would be needed to drive every young refugee back to Syria.

~Despite the ongoing efforts of the Turkish government to respond effectively to this humanitarian crisis, there is a resounding gap between the needs of these individuals and the services currently available to them.

~Turkish authorities report 55 percent of Syrian refugees there needing psychological services and nearly half of Syrian families think that they or their families need psychological support. Yet, it is estimated that only 5 percent of the needed psychotherapy for refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey is provided. 

Sources: BBC,  Mercy Corps, Small Projects Istanbul, Brookings Institute, U.N., Migration Policy Institute.

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