By Pooja Pradeep | Founder, Letters of Love
"Dear friend,
My name is Ali and I'm 7 years old. I am very happy to get your letter. It made me happy. The colours are very pretty and thank you for the stickers. I keep them safe in my bag.
I am from Aleppo. Now I live in Swaida. A bomb dropped on my house and it is pieces now. So we had to come here. My father and sister are not with us anymore. I don't know where they are. I'm here with my mother and brothers. We love to play outside a lot. What games do you like ? I want to become a doctor when i grow up so that I can treat people around me. They're all suffering. I will go to school one day again.
I hope you like my drawings.
Please come visit us with your friends.We will play.
Hugs.
Ali."
(Letter translated from Arabic verbatim, written by Ali, a 7 year old internally displaced child in Syria, to his pen-pal in India)
Letters of Love's Pen Pal Project for the third time in two years facilitated the exchange of hundred pen-pal letters and continues to foster these incredible friendships across lines of conflict. In collaboration with Clap Global, an educational entity that leverages travellers in local classrooms to encourage cross-cultural learning, our trainers conducted sensitisation workshops in schools across Mumbai, India. The students once sensitised to the global refugee crises using the Syrian war and its consequential refugee crisis as a case study were inspired to come up with action oriented ways to help the community. Encouraging them to write letters, asking questions, explaining about their own identity and culture and allowing them to articulate through art and colours yielded joy and a sense of responsibility amongst students.
Our Syrian chapter based out of Al-Swaida in Syria, hosted a full day of fun activities and psychosocial support workshops in which the Pen Pal Project was facilitated on their end. The children received the letters and wrote back to their friends and also made endearing drawings. They insited on hand making envelopes and all of them were labelled 'Love from Syria!'.
Due to logistical restraints owing to shipment to and from a war torn country, the whole process took 8 months but was indeed, worth the wait.
Thank YOU for enabling these magical friendships :)
We are truly grateful to your generous heart!
Letters of Love team is now gearing up for World Refugee Day 2019 on June 20th and are counting on your support. Please stay tuned.
Here's to doing whatever we can, with whatever we have, wherever we are.
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