(MENAFN- Jordan Times) AMMAN — "People are telling me, 'We're ready to die. We're so tired and so hopeless. It's not getting any better.'" These are some of the words that Jordanian Laila Soudi remembers about her conversations with her connections in the rebel-held suburb of Douma, the site of suspected chemical attacks in April this year.
Born in a family that traces its roots to Syria and Palestine, Soudi, 26, has worked as an activist and mental health professional across the Middle East, where she collected testimonies from Syrians who fled the civil war and are now living displaced lives in refugee camps and host communities.
"Sometimes without a home, school, clean water, or basic medical care, I also noticed that what they lack the most is mental health support in the aftermath of traumatic experiences," Soudi told The Jordan Times.
"The stories I heard are just heartbreaking," the young Jordanian recalled from her office in the California-based Stanford campus, adding "it is just a level of inhumanity that I honestly never thought was possible. This displacement crisis is far from over, and Syrians need support more than ever before, which is where Stanford can fit in".
Frustrated by the lack of action from her university in this regard, she submitted a proposal written with the help of advisor Nadia Roumani, which was approved and financed by Stanford's president Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Dean Lloyd Minor, and implemented under the title "Stanford Refugee Research Project (SRRP)".
Conducted under the leadership of Michele Barry, director of the Stanford Centre for Innovation in Global Health, the 18-month project aims to 'uncover all faculty, staff, and students working on refugee projects, connect them, and identify opportunities to collaborate and contribute meaningfully to the ongoing, worsening displacement crisis', according to its website.
'The idea of bringing people together from across the university is to really look at the refugee crisis holistically and in a multi-disciplinary perspective,' Soudi stated, noting that 'as a mental health worker/researcher who has been working with Syrian refugees for a while, I was interested in looking at the trauma within refugee population in Jordan and Lebanon and what impacts children, what causes resiliency and how kids cope with such trauma, among other perspectives".
With an unprecedented 65.6 million people displaced from their homes as a result of conflict and persecution around the world, the number of refugees across the globe has reached its highest levels since World War II, said Katherine Burke, deputy director of the Centre for Innovation in Global Health
Syria stands at the top of this dramatic podium, with over 11 million people displaced by the eight-year civil war, one of the largest numbers of refugees globally.
Officially launched in September 2017, the project will span through March 2019, when concrete opportunities for local and international engagement of Stanford faculty, staff and students in refugee crises will be unfolded.
Built around three work pillars, the SRRP seeks to 'engage Stanford's seven schools to identify key players with extensive experience or commitment to refugee work, as well as faculty, staff, and students interested in engaging more actively in refugee-focused work', according to its website.
The SRRP aims to convene and engage a cross-campus community to address in an innovative and sustainable way the global challenge presented by the Syrian refugee crisis and to help alleviate conditions for the victims of such crises in the Middle East.
'We have developed a team of 11 research ambassadors comprised of undergraduates, graduates, interns and fellows at Stanford, who represent the seven schools of the campus. They are key actors in the project as they are ambassadors of the SRRP in their respective schools, assist with mapping efforts across the university and lead student engagement efforts,' Soudi explained.
The second pillar aims to collect research to assess the needs of Syrian refugees in the Middle East, especially in Jordan and Lebanon and those of the agencies and organisations providing services to them.
Finally, the SRRP will work to implement a pilot project, based on identified needs and resources, to deploy Stanford faculty, staff, and students to improve refugee conditions in these two target countries.
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