“I want other refugees to be able to establish a life like I have. I know I have been lucky to have these opportunities, why can’t everyone.”
In 2007, Ghada fled Iraq with her older brother and his family. Her mum had been killed during fighting in the neighborhood when she was on the way to pick up extra food from her grandparents’ house and militias had recently approached her father threatening the family if he didn’t give permission for them to marry Ghada and her younger sister.
Scared about what might happen, Ghada’s father decided to split up the family for their own safety. He would go to Syria with her younger sister and brother, and Ghada to Jordan with her older brother.
Thirteen years later, Ghada has been married and divorced to a Jordanian, her brother and his family have been resettled to the United States, but most important of all she has built a career for herself as an established community support worked. “Since 2008, I’ve been lucky in finding work in charities, local organizations and NGO’s across Jordan, from Amman and Zarqaa to going on missions to the South.”
Ghada says that “being a refugee is just a technical description,” that it doesn’t reflect the diversity and varied need of the people she has met through work. In her latest position as a member of the community support committee in Nuzha, Ghada wishes that she will become someone who “when people hear my name, they know I can help.” With her wide network of contacts both in the refugee and humanitarian communities, she is well placed to do so.
From refugees with severe medical needs which she says she doesn’t stop following up on until they receive treatment, to those who need psychological support after the trauma they have gone through, Ghada is dedicated to helping.
“I want other refugees to be able to establish a life like I have. I know I have been lucky to have these opportunities, why can’t everyone.”
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