The Neighbourhood Storyteller
From a film by the Big Heart Foundation
Asma is a 28 year-old Syrian woman and mother of four living in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. She was forced to flee her home country due to the Syrian war and arrived in Jordan in 2012 after experiencing a long and difficult journey from Syria.
After one year in the camp, Asma started thinking that the community needed to work together to change things. She saw potential in the camp and thought there was something to be done. Back in Syria, the life of a woman is to get married and have children. Growing up, Asma was very excited about going to school and loved learning but she could not finish school because she was married at the age of 16.
Asma always felt that there was more to life and grew up questioning what her role would be and what her potential was. Ironically, Asma’s husband turned out to be her number one supporter and the person that most encourages her to continue pursuing her education and dreams prompting her to be socially active.
Even though camp living conditions were improving, they were receiving news about the war nonstop and hearing it made her extremely anxious. This constant anxiety was not suitable for a pregnant woman and she ended up losing the baby. Asma describes this dreadful experience as the moment where God helped her through her misery to gather the strength and do something for others.
She suddenly heard about We Love Reading (WLR) and decided to take the training. Her insecurity and lack of confidence of not having a degree challenged her but when she realized all she had to do was read she felt it was her calling. Asma always loved reading and she always loved stories. Since then, Asma began to host her own reading aloud circles in her neighbourhood. She faced many challenges when gathering the children such as convincing both the parents and the children of the importance of reading for fun. She had to fight against the mindset of children attending reading sessions instead of working to support their families.
She thought of creative ways to engage children and began writing her own books with the children who attended her sessions as the protagonists of her stories. Suddenly parents began coming to her because their children were asking to be read to. Her sessions went from 5-6 children to one session where 100 children attended. Teachers at a local school went to find Asma to understand what she was doing and ended up hiring her as a teacher at one of the Save the Children’s schools.
In the first reading sessions, she always handed the children blank pieces of paper to draw on and noticed that they would draw bombs, drones, and war-related elements. After weeks of reading sessions, their drawings would start to change. They started drawing family, flowers, and the things that they saw in the stories. Asma identified the main problems in the camp such as littering and water problems and she would write stories about them to change children’s attitudes and behaviours around such issues.
Day by day and story by story, people began to change.
When the pandemic hit, Asma’s teaching job at Save the Children sadly terminated. Asma started a campaign to gather funds to support initiatives during COVID-19. She continued to host reading sessions even though they were significantly reduced.
Today, Asma envisions a new project - to empower teenage girls (ages 11-15) to have self-confidence, gain ownership of their lives, know that they have potential to create change in their community and help them understand that education, profession and social civil engagement can be part of their future no matter any challenges they may face. She will do this through a reading aloud programme.
A film about Asma has been made - The Neighbourhood Storyteller. Here is the 3 minute trailer:
Note - We Love Reading training materials are available in several languages - see here.
You can host a free screening of the 50 minute film - see here.
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From a film by the Big Heart Foundation, 05/12/2023