We attended a meeting of Warrington's Rotary Club on 19 September and delivered a presentation on Syria alongside Nora Carlin of Care-UK, a charity which is involved in the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria. We focused on the issue of civilian protection and stressed the need to find a solution to the root cause of the problem.
Rethink Rebuild Society was one of the official partners of the 17 September Annual Refugee Welcome March. We organised a bus to join the demonstration in London and stood side by side with thousands of people from across the country to call on the Government to do more to resettle refugees.
We hosted a 'Local Welcome Meal' on 17 September with a team led by Ben Pollard. This initiative brought together three Syrians and three non-Syrians to prepare and share a meal while discussing issues pertaining to integration, work, and education.
As the US-Russian brokered ceasefire in Syria has witnessed a dramatic decrease in the amount of violence in the country, a group of 101 organisations (including Rethink Rebuild Society) released a statement calling upon the US and Russia to use their influence to ensure further civilian protection and to move towards a negotiated political solution to end the conflict.
Along with fifty leading refugee charities and agencies, we submitted a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May reminding her of the UK's commitments to helping refugees and also urging her to offer safe passage to even more. This letter was submitted prior to the national Refugees Welcome March and was mentioned in The Guardian.
We organised a fun day at the park in celebration of Eid al-Adha on 12 September. Approximately 200 Syrians got together at Cringle Park for games, tea, and coffee. It was an opportunity for the community to get together and enjoy the Eid holiday.
We were interviewed on 11 September for our thoughts on the recent US-Russian ceasefire agreement set to begin on 12 September. We highlighted the previous day's casualties of over 100 people in Aleppo, Aleppo suburbs, and Idlib by the Assad regime and Russia as indicative of the bad faith by Russia in achieving a ceasefire.
Speaking to Deutsche Welle on 10 September on our reaction to the US-Russian agreement on an Aleppo ceasefire, we stated that "We're always going to be cautiously optimistic, but we've seen this time and time again". We stressed that enforcement of the terms of the ceasefire is critical to ensure the success of this, or any other, ceasefire agreement.
About Daraya—a town of fierce hope, whose betrayal is a lesson we must learn from.
Daraya has been a town of fierce hope and inspiration for four years, embodying the values of the Syrian revolution.
We screened 'Queens of Syria' on 6 November by director Yasmin Fedda at our office. The movie documented the two-month journey of Syrian refugee women in producing a play in Jordan, as well as the various barriers that they overcame to successfully put on this play.