Syria

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Türkiye

Emmanuel College

Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

Global

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

When a catastrophic series of earthquakes hit Türkiye and Syria, graduate student Ayşenur Ince knew she had to do something to help alleviate suffering in the wake of a tragedy that has now left more than 50,000 people dead, thousands injured and millions more without homes and other necessities.

Ince, who is in the first year of a master of pastoral studies program offered conjointly by U of T and Emmanuel College at Victoria University, is currently living in Istanbul. Seeing shock and grief all around her, she decided to put what she was learning about spiritual care and counselling into immediate practice.

“The devastation is so widespread that even though the government is exhausting all the power they have, we still need civilian help,” Ince said by phone from Istanbul. “I started doing counselling for people, including those who have worked in the rescue operations, because they’re really unwell – these are people who had to triage; to pick and choose who they saved. Many others have earthquake nightmares – there’s a lot of post-traumatic stress right now because they're constantly scared that an earthquake will happen again.”

Residents walk amid the rubble in Hatay, Türkiye (photo by Yavuz Ozden/dia images/Getty Images)

Ince is just one of many U of T students, faculty, staff, librarians and alumni who have pitched in to help raise awareness and funds, as well as mobilize resources to help in the aftermath of the earthquakes – from fundraisers by student groups to donation drives by individual programs and faculties.

In a statement on Feb. 6, Joseph Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international, urged members of the U of T community to support each other and to reach out for help if needed. Student Life units at the university have been touch with student groups and individuals from affected regions to offer support.

Ince, who completed her undergraduate degree at U of T Scarborough, says she drew on the skills she was learning in her master’s program and sought the advice of her professors about how best to counsel people going through so much trauma.

“When this first happened, I was in fight-or-flight mode. And then I reached out to my professors to ask them what I should do and to send me some sort of training specific to crisis management,” Ince said.

“At the college, I had classes that gave me a universal approach to everything – I even had the chance to take some disaster training. At the time, I felt like, ‘When am I ever going to need this?’ But being here when this actually happened, I felt like I was prepared. I keep wondering what I would have done if I hadn’t started the program.”

Tents errected by the Turkish disaster and emergency management organization (AFAD) for earthquake victims in Kahramanmaraş (photo by Yan Zhigang/VCG via Getty Images)

One of the professors Ince contacted was program director Nazila Isgandarova, who was able to advise her on trauma resources and connect her with peers who also wanted to help. “The damage due to the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria is beyond any imagination. Ayşenur met many people who suffered and continue to suffer from earthquake-related experiences and losses,” Isgandarova said. “As a psychotherapy student, Ayşenur volunteered to help people not only with trauma-focused counselling and spiritually integrated grief counselling, but also tried to arrange support for people who faced financial hardships.”

Ince received financial donations from her fellow students, which she used to purchase dozens of portable coal stoves for those left without electricity following the earthquakes. Emmanuel College also sent boxes of nonperishable food overseas and held a vigil a week after the disaster to remember the victims.

Efforts to raise funds to assist people in Türkiye and Syria and increase awareness about the scale of the disaster continue across U of T on all three campuses, particularly among student groups.

Bake sales and fundraising drives by the tri-campus chapters of the Turkish Students’ Association (TUSA), Syrian Students’ Association, Muslim Students’ Association and Amnesty International, among others, have raised more than $25,000 to date – much of which is being matched dollar-for-dollar by the student groups.

Immediately following the disaster, the Turkish Students’ Association at U of T Scarborough began collecting funds and in-kind donations on campus, raising close to $9,000 and 18 boxes of donated goods, said TUSA-UTSC co-president Yasmin Din.

“Staff and students have generously contributed to our campaign,” Din said, adding that student volunteers can be found overseeing the donation location with their schoolwork in tow. “There are no words to describe this level of dedication and support.”

From left to right: Turkish Students Association members Lilaf Salman, Irem Demirel, Selcuk Maslak, Elif Baran, Yasmin Din and Sedika Salman at their donation table at U of T Scarborough (photo supplied)

A fourth-year psychology student, Din first heard about the earthquake from her father, who was in Ankara, Türkiye’s capital. While her family in the region remained safe, Din lost a friend in Malatya, one of the most-affected provinces, and heard from another U of T graduate whose father was among the casualties.

“She had to patiently wait for 11 days for the rescue teams to recover her father’s body,” Din said. “At the same time, as there was no electricity in the city, she and her husband had to stay in their car at night or rest in the semi-collapsed buildings, which was very tough because aftershocks were constantly happening. So many millions of people have been affected by this mega-quake – for them, life will never be the same.”

TUSA has been working with the Turkish Consulate General in Toronto to arrange for airlifts of the donated goods – including winter clothing, hygiene kits, baby formula and diapers – to the region, while cash contributions will be transferred to organizations in Türkiye who are managing the situation on the ground, including Turkish nonprofit Ahbap. Din noted that some of the financial support will go toward temporary shelter and repairing damaged homes in the region, which is crucial to rebuilding while so many are living in makeshift housing following the earthquakes.

Providing shelter is also a major issue in neighbouring Syria, which has been destabilized by a 12-year-long civil war.

“There is still a great need for housing for those who have been displaced, as well as the allocation of medicines and other requirements. This is especially important in Syria, where the infrastructure has been greatly strained,” said Oya Mercan, an associate professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering who received her undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.

Kenana Al Kakouni

“If the building safety assessment indicates that the structural components – the beams and the columns – of a building are not damaged, it will be cost-efficient to fix the damage to the nonstructural components such as the partition walls. As such, it is an important initiative to raise funds and awareness for this purpose.”

The Syria Solidarity Collective (SSC), co-founded by U of T PhD graduate and staff member Kenana Al Kakouni, is also raising funds at St. George campus to assist with rebuilding homes in Syria, among other aid efforts. Funds raised will go to the Molham Volunteering Team, an international organization that works in northern Syria to rebuild homes for displaced people.

Al Kakouni, who currently works as an imaging facility lead technician in the department of cell and systems biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science, said while her relatives in Syria are safe, they are mourning the loss of a family who were their neighbours.

The earthquake only further exacerbated the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria after more than a decade of conflict in the country, Al Kakouni said.

“People there were already suffering from lack of food, heat, medical supplies – right now, what we’re hearing is that what is most needed is tents, given that so many are still without shelter.”

At U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Dean Erica Walker, advancement staff and the OISE Alumni Association Student Advisory Committee (SAC) organized an in-kind donation drive for non-perishable food, winter clothing, equipment such as tents, blankets, sleeping bags and thermoses, as well as hygiene items including menstrual products and diapers. The donation bins will be available in the OISE lobby until March 6.

“OISE has a really diverse student body, and we wanted to not only send a message of hope to our U of T community, but also to take action,” said SAC chair Seema Hooda, a graduate of OISE’s master of education program. “The donation drive is an extension of our purpose and mission, and it has been a joint effort from both students and staff. It’s a way to show support for our Turkish and Syrian peers – and also to engage people to make a contribution that could help save lives.”

From left to right: OISE staff Sim Kapoor, Latifa Soliman, Helen Huang, Dean Erica Walker, Perry King, Reesa Barkhouse, Biljana Cuckovic (photo supplied)

SSC co-founder Al Kakouni urged U of T community members looking to support aid efforts on campus to follow student groups’ social media accounts for upcoming fundraisers and other initiatives, write to political representatives to raise awareness of the disaster, and donate to reputable organizations such as the White Helmets and Syrian American Medical Society in Syria, as well as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders internationally.

For Türkiye, TUSA co-president Din recommends donating to Ahbap, the disaster and emergency management organization AFAD and search-and-rescue non-profit AKUT.

Students have also recognized the need to support their peers who may have been affected by the disaster, creating a “solidarity space” for reflection and connection at the Multi-Faith Centre on the St. George campus.

“The students' idea was to allow students from the region to get help in their own languages: Arabic and Turkish,” said Adrien Zakar, assistant professor in the department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations. “With the support of the department, the Turkish Students’ Association and the Syria Solidarity Collective, more than 50 Turkish- and Arabic-speaking volunteers from U of T received health and wellness training to provide further guidance to visitors.”

In addition to donating money and goods to help people affected by the earthquake, it’s equally important for those far away from the region to recognize and amplify the sheer scope of the disaster, Emmanuel College student Ince said.

“The aftermath of this is going to be huge. We can see physical injuries, but no one sees psychological wounds,” she said. “Right after the earthquake, one of my professors, Angela Schmidt, changed the whole subject of her class to focus on the issue – it was just what I needed. She explained what to do when you face certain situations. After a situation like this, we have to think about how to view calamity. Why do bad things happen to good people? It really makes us question everything in life.”

Resources for U of T students, staff, faculty and librarians:

Student groups can post their fundraisers and other events on the Student Organization Portal to broaden awareness
The university has emergency funding available for students in need, which can be accessed by completing the U of T grant application:

Undergraduate students

Graduate students

Students can access mental-health supports through:

Mental Health Portal

My SSP (24/7 support via phone or chat)

Faculty, staff and librarians may contact the Employee and Family Assistance Program at 1-855-597-2110
The Scholars at Risk Award Program, established in part in response to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2016, remains open for applications each year from students who are accepted to U of T

'The need is urgent': Earthquakes in Syria and Türkiye turn crisis into catastrophe

Christopher.Sorensen — Sat, 11 Feb 2023 00:25:02 +0000

'The need is urgent': Earthquakes in Syria and Türkiye turn crisis into catastrophe

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/10/2023 - 19:25

Cutline

Earthquakes have devastated Türkiye and parts of neighbouring Syria, where survivors took shelter in tents in the city of Idlib (photo by Muhammed Said/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Topic

The powerful earthquakes that struck Türkiye and Syria this week have caused widespread destruction and claimed the lives of thousands in the region.

In Syria, people were already living in partially destroyed buildings and tents. A 12-year civil war has destabilized the country, causing a humanitarian and economic crisis that has displaced millions of people – including an estimated 3.6 million refugees who fled to neighbouring Türkiye.

Joan Simalchik

Joan Simalchik, professor emerita in the department of historical studies at U of T Mississauga, says the earthquakes have added a “heavy layer to the embedded tragedy” in the region.

“There is an immediate urgent need to establish emergency hospitals, airlifts, and medical care and restore core services,” Simalchik says.

Organizations and governments around the world have donated millions of dollars and supplies to the devastated areas. The Canadian government has pledged to donate $10 million in aid and will match donations made to the Canadian Red Cross from Feb. 6 to 22.

In a statement earlier this week, Joseph Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international, expressed concern and sympathy for those affected by the disaster, urging members of the U of T community to support each other and to reach out for help if needed.

Beyond ensuring humanitarian aid reaches those affected – a task made more challenging in Syria by the ongoing civil war and the impact of sanctions – Simalchik says mental health services will need to be established to address the traumatic effects of the unfolding catastrophe.

U of T News spoke with Simalchik about the international response so far and the challenges that lie ahead.

How would you describe the scale of the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding following the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria?

Catastrophic. The number of deaths keeps growing with much of the area's infrastructure destroyed. At this moment more than 22,000 people have been confirmed dead.

What are the implications of this disaster, now and over the longer-term, for the millions of people in Syria who have already been displaced because of the decade-long civil war?

Refugees have already been in a prolonged desperate situation. While international aid agencies had been on the ground, funds for housing, health, and schooling were severely limited. The earthquake has exacerbated their conditions and the need is urgent to supplement already scarce resources. There is an immediate, urgent need to establish emergency hospitals, airlifts and medical care, and to restore core services such as food, water, shelter and warm clothing.

Beyond the physical rebuilding that will be required, there will be longer term issues involving family and kinship reunification and support. Importantly, it will be crucial to establish psychosocial services to address the traumatic effects of surviving the disaster.

In addition, the world's countries should set up mechanisms for permanent resettlement of long-term refugees. This disaster has brought them into visibility, but "out-of-sight" is not a solution to displacement.

What has the international response been like so far?

It is still developing but the response from countries, organizations, and individuals has been as strong as typically the case in the immediate aftermath. The critical issue is to keep attention ongoing past the immediate devastation and crisis care. Once the cameras have been packed up, the needs do not disappear with them.

What does long-term recovery for the Syrian people look like following the earthquakes?

Long-term recovery will necessitate finding stable homes and resettlement. Only after uncertain life conditions are remedied, can people begin to address the multiple layers of trauma they have experienced (war, displacement, physical and emotional wounds, and loss of home, culture and community). The earthquakes have added a heavy layer to the embedded tragedy.

For members of the U of T community who may be moved or able to contribute to relief efforts:

The Government of Canada has created a matching program on donations to the Canadian Red Cross until Feb. 22, 2023. Details: Canadian Red Cross

Student groups across U of T's three campuses can post events to the Student Organization Portal, and members of the community can find opportunities to participate on the Events Calendar.

For members of the U of T community in need of support:

Students:

U of T My Student Support Program (My SSP) can be accessed 24/7 by phone or via the My SSP app.

Other mental health resources, programs and supports are available through the student mental health resource page.

Staff and faculty:

Employee and Family Assistance Program (1-800-663-1142)

Danny Ramadan is U of T Scarborough’s new writer-in-residence

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 14:22:42 +0000

Danny Ramadan is U of T Scarborough’s new writer-in-residence

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 02/06/2023 - 09:22

Cutline

An author and advocate for LGBTQ+ Syrian refugees, Danny Ramadan is bringing his lifetime of writing experience to U of T Scarborough as writer-in-residence, a role that connects celebrated writers with the school community (submitted photo)

Topic

As a gay person growing up in Syria, Danny Ramadan says every day was like taking a paper cut to his mental health.

“I was navigating a lot of trauma. I was a queer child in a very dysfunctional family system and a hyper-masculine, working-class environment,” he says. “I felt like my mentality kept crashing and I kept putting it back together by writing about it. Writing was how I didn't die by a thousand paper cuts.”

What began as a coping mechanism led to several books, articles and short stories that have garnered awards and critical acclaim. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was named among the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, while his children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef, won the Nautilus Book Award and The Middle East Book Award.

He’s now bringing his years of writing experience to U of T Scarborough as writer-in-residence, a role that connects celebrated writers with the school community through office hours, workshops and appearances in classrooms and events.

Ramadan has been a published writer since age 10, when his first poem appeared in a children’s magazine in Damascus. No one else in his life shared his passion, but he kept writing, finding himself particularly drawn to short stories. Ramadan says he didn’t inherit his writing prowess, but adds that his family did hand down their voices. He internalized the voice of his father, which espouses toxic masculinity, and one from his mother, which tells him to doubt himself.

“Sometimes you have the voices of several doubters living in your head. I think that's a fluffy term for childhood trauma, the voices we take on that are foreign to ourselves,” he says.

Ramadan’s life changed at age 17 when he first said out loud to his family that he was gay. Ramadan experienced homelessness and slept on friends’ couches until he found his own place – all while still using writing as a lifeline. He examined everything around him, including the concept of coming out. Unlike in Toronto, a city where LBGTQ+ organizations, institutions and communities are common, he says coming out in Damascus often means losing every form of support.

“Queerness is not a club where you need to come out to receive your membership card,” he says. “You need to navigate the world according to the dynamics around you.”

At age 20, Ramadan published his first collection of short stories in Egypt, drawing job offers that led him to move to the country for seven years. In 2010, he returned to Syria as national unrest culminated in the Syrian civil war. He began running an underground centre for LGBTQ+ Syrians out of his home, an endeavor he calls “beautifully naive,” and one that landed him in prison for six weeks.

Upon his release, he was declared persona non grata by the Syrian government and moved to Lebanon as a refugee. Writing fiction has always been his life’s calling, but it didn’t initially offer a steady source of income. He became a journalist to pay the bills and by his late-20s was reporting for the Washington Post from the heart of the refugee crisis in the Middle East.

The three years he spent as a reporter are not a time Ramadan looks back on fondly. He spent hours counting bodies in YouTube videos, interviewing rebels and dissecting massacres for articles that sometimes didn’t get published, depending on what the ever-churning news cycle deemed most important that day.

“I never felt like I had my own voice. I was just part of a much larger machine as a journalist,” he says. “In my creative writing, I feel like I'm my own boss. I am the master of my own craft and I have a village of folks who are supporting me.”

In 2014, he arrived in Vancouver as a refugee, where he lives with his husband and dog. He earned a master’s degree in fine arts in creative writing from the University of British Columbia.

Ramadan has 18 doves tattooed on his bicep – one for each LGBTQ+ Syrian refugee his annual fundraiser, “An Evening in Damascus,” has brought to Canada – and he still has to add three more birds. His charity has raised more than $300,000 to support LGBTQ+ Syrian refugees.

Ramadan’s memoir is scheduled for release in the summer of 2024 and he is working on a series of short stories and children’s books. On campus, he recently hosted a reading and holds office hours on Thursdays.

“I am a big fan of talking to folks,” he says. “I'm very approachable. So let's talk.”

Pilot project uses VR simulations to help newcomers learn English

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:46:22 +0000

Pilot project uses VR simulations to help newcomers learn English

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/02/2022 - 14:46

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Liz Coulson, Ji-young Shin and Paul Alexander run through a demo with some of the VR equipment they use to help newcomers to Canada learn English as part of a pilot project with the federal government (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Topic

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

U of T Mississauga

Would you be more confident in a job interview if you had a chance to practice first? For newcomers to Canada, the answer is often a resounding “yes.”

With the help of virtual reality (VR), a pilot project at the University of Toronto is helping those who are new to Canada learn English by giving them a chance to practice their skills in simulated scenarios such as job interviews, shopping or ordering food at a restaurant.

The approach has been shown to not only to improve learners’ comprehension and speaking skills, but also their confidence.

“In VR, it is more hands-on to learn the language – it’s a very interesting experience,” says Baian Alkailani, who is one of the students involved in the pilot. “Learning it in a more fun and interactive way is very helpful to improve language skills.”

Alkailani says the VR simulation helps her practice real-life scenarios like shopping, banking, or ordering a coffee. “I think this is what we need,” she says.

The three-year pilot project is funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the university. It was developed by U of T Mississauga’s language studies department in conjunction with the Syrian Canadian Foundation (SCF).

“They’re super motivated and we see an increase in self-confidence,” says Paul Alexander, the assistant principal investigator on the project who oversees the technical elements related to VR.

“This is a new iteration with the technology,” adds Liz Coulson, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of language studies and the education studies undergraduate program co-ordinator who oversees the research elements in the project.

The pilot project uses VR equipment to help newcomers learn English by giving them the chance to practice in simulated scenarios such as a job interview (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Coulson has been involved with U of T Mississauga’s language classes for past last five years through the department. But it’s only this year that VR and artificial intelligence were introduced to the lesson plan through the help of partnerships and collaborations.

The language program is eight weeks long, running every Saturday at U of T Mississauga. This fall, the university is holding two VR classes per week. There are 12 students per class, but close to 50 students total for the whole project. Classes are divided between standard language classes (without VR) and VR classes. Over a three-hour class, teachers will give a lesson before students use VR headsets in “role-play” segments with newly learned material.

The project uses Oculus Quest or Meta Quest headsets, which are standalone VR headsets capable of displaying different environments and settings.

“For the most part, all the students are first timers,” Alexander says.

For now, the project remains focused on refugee and newcomer populations. U of T Mississauga’s work with the Syrian Canadian Foundation began five years ago, which is when Coulson took on the initial language program before VR and AI were implemented.

“I took it on wholeheartedly because I think it’s such an important project,” says Coulson, who applauds the work done by the foundation. “It was their inspiration at the beginning and partnership that has led to all this. It’s just an incredible team on that side.”

The team includes Coulson, Alexander, Ji-young Shin, Ilan Danjoux, a group of teachers who are graduates of the education studies program, teaching assistants and U of T Mississauga students, including two that went on to work with the foundation because of the language studies program.

“This turned into employment opportunities for lots of students,” Coulson says, noting the department also works with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). “It’s really a family unit of UTM, OISE and department of language studies people.”

Coulson and Alexander are also monitoring the pedagogical effectiveness of using VR to teach, pointing to the opportunities it offers beyond language studies.

The current program wraps up later this month and resumes in January.

The New Normal with Maydianne Andrade (Ep. 7): A crossroad

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:40:49 +0000

The New Normal with Maydianne Andrade (Ep. 7): A crossroad Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 07/10/2020 - 10:40

Topic

Our Community

COVID-19 New Normal

After months of a global pandemic and weeks of protests against anti-Black racism and police brutality, are we at a crossroad?

“It feels like we are at a critical moment,” says Maydianne Andrade, a Canada Research Chair in Integrative Behavioural Ecology and the University of Toronto Scarborough’s vice-dean of faculty affairs and equity. “Will we choose the path that is more challenging but more just?”

In episode seven of her podcast, The New Normal, Andrade is joined by Joe Wong, the Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the founder and principal investigator for the REACH Alliance. She is also joined by alumna and activist Noura Al-Jizawi, who endured torture in Syria before finding a new home in Canada and was helped by the Munk School’s Citizen Lab and the Scholars at Risk program. Now a research assistant at Citizen Lab, Al-Jizawi is also an alumna of the Reach Alliance.

The New Normal is created in collaboration with a University of Toronto Communications team led by producer Lisa Lightbourn. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify or listen on SoundCloud. You can also find it on Apple or listen on Google.

‘You cannot defeat me': U of T grad Noura Al-Jizawi, a leader of the Syrian uprising, takes on a new challenge

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 17:34:07 +0000

‘You cannot defeat me': U of T grad Noura Al-Jizawi, a leader of the Syrian uprising, takes on a new challenge

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/07/2019 - 13:34

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Noura Al-Jizawi, who organized pro-democracy protests in Syria and was detained and tortured, graduated with a Master of Global Affairs from the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Topic

Citizen Lab

Global

Scholars at Risk

Syrian activist Noura Al-Jizawi forged a relationship with the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy long before she enrolled as a student.

Her introduction to U of T came via the Munk School’s Citizen Lab in 2016, when researchers helped Al-Jizawi, at the time a leader of the Syrian uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, thwart a hacking attempt on her email address.

The attack, Citizen Lab discovered, was part of an elaborate cyber-espionage campaign operating out of Iran, which they detailed in an explosive report. When the investigation concluded, the researchers invited Al-Jizawi to participate in the Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI), a workshop for practitioners working on Internet openness, security and human rights.

“It was an amazing starting point. The Munk School community is a welcoming community,” says Al-Jizawi.

“I started meeting some professors and found myself saying ‘I need to go to the Munk School.’ I didn’t apply to any other schools. I put all of my hopes in one basket.”

Before U of T, Al-Jizawi had been pursuing a master’s degree in comparative literature in Syria. But her duties were split between academics and activism. Al-Jizawi spoke out against the regime and organized pro-democracy protests, ran a blog and, at one point, became a vice-president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. It was dangerous work; Al-Jizawi was arrested multiple times, detained and tortured.

“I almost finished my master’s, but without a diploma. They didn’t allow me to defend my thesis because I was detained,” she says. “My supervisor was detained as well. All the time, I was thinking, ‘How am I going to continue my studies?’”

The answer was the Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program. In 2017, with help from U of T’s Scholars-at-Risk program, Al-Jizawi arrived in Toronto for her first day of class, seven months pregnant and ready to shift her academic focus.

“I decided to challenge myself. In the first year, I tried to avoid anything focusing on Syria,” she says. “I tried to avoid any classes related to justice or human rights because I thought ‘I need to try something new.’”

Noura Al-Jizawi and her daughter display the Syrian independence flag after convocation on June 7, 2019 (photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

The appetite for change led Al-Jizawi to study innovation and artificial intelligence for her MGA capstone project. She also became a student researcher with the Munk School’s Reach Project, where she is studying Guinea’s malaria program. She is scheduled to travel to Guinea this summer to conduct field research.

“It’s my first trip to Africa,” she says. “It’s my first time focusing on health issues. Everything is new.”

Although Al-Jizawi relishes her new experiences, she acknowledges the road to convocation has had its challenges. The MGA represents her first time studying in English; her previous lessons were taught in Arabic. She also gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in her first year of study, shortly after fall exams.

“I went to the hospital and told my doctor: ‘I’m ready to give birth now. I’m done with midterms,’” she says.

Ten days after a caesarean delivery, Al-Jizawi was back in class. She used the winter break to catch up on the assignments she missed while she was in the hospital.

“I got a hand from the professors and support from all the people around me – it was amazing.”

Al-Jizawi plans to cross the stage at convocation with her daughter, whom her classmates refer to affectionately as the ‘MGA baby.’

“I imagine the moment I hold my diploma,” says Al-Jizawi. “It’s going to be the moment I defeat the dictators in Syria, because it’s going to send the message: ‘You cannot defeat me. I’m the one who’s going to win.’ I want my daughter to hold my diploma with me.”

Al-Jizawi’s time as an MGA student may be ending, but her relationship with the Munk School is far from over. Her winding journey has led her right back to Citizen Lab, where she currently works as a research assistant.

“Munk School is not only a school, it’s an amazing journey for endless learning,” she says. “At Munk School, we are home.”

Syria’s White Helmets speak at U of T about their dangerous front-line work and preparing for life after war

Romi Levine — Wed, 10 Apr 2019 20:50:07 +0000

Syria’s White Helmets speak at U of T about their dangerous front-line work and preparing for life after war

Romi Levine Wed, 04/10/2019 - 16:50

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The White Helmets, a Syrian emergency first-responder group, are on the scene in the city of Douma following reported air strikes (photo by Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Topic

Global

Graduate Students

Syrian refugees

The day after speaking to a room of students, faculty members and policy-makers at the University of Toronto, Muneer Mustafa planned to make his way back to Syria where he will return to the front lines of a war that is now in its eighth year.

Mustafa, a former firefighter, is a volunteer with Syrian Civil Defense – also known as the White Helmets. The group is made up of thousands of volunteers across Syria who are first on the scene when disaster strikes in rebel-held regions of the country. The work is dangerous, often involving navigating the aftermath of barrel bombs dropped by Syrian and Russian planes. That includes combing through the rubble to find survivors and retrieve the dead.

“The ‘civil’ part of the civil defence was quite important,” Mustafa told a packed boardroom on Monday at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, as translated by political science PhD student Jamal Mansour.

“These are volunteers that come from all walks of life: doctors, pharmacists but also carpenters and regular folk who felt it incumbent upon themselves to actually go and step up and give these services where they're needed, where they were not available.”

The White Helmets are also targets – painted by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian counterparts as enemies of the state, and attacked by the Islamic State, which, until recently, occupied parts of the country. The group says over 250 volunteers have been killed since 2013.

Members of the White Helmets were at U of T to talk about their work, the situation in Syria and the lives of those displaced by the civil war at an event organized by Munk’s Global Migration Lab.

“The Syrian civil war, and the displacement crisis as a result, touches on all of the aspects of our research,” said Craig Damian Smith, the lab's associate director.

From populist governments using the refugee crisis as a political leg up, to how the international community will tackle displacement crises in the future, Smith said the Syrian civil war has wide-ranging and long-lasting implications for the international community.

In addition to Mustafa, speakers at the event included White Helmets volunteers Majed Al Khalf and Maysoon Al Masri, as well as Farouq Habib, who works with the White Helmets in his role as the Syrian program director at the Mayday Rescue Foundation. The not-for-profit foundation supports first-responders in conflict zones.

(From left) Al Khalf, Mustafa, Al Masri, and Habib share their experiences at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy on the downtown Toronto campus (photo by Dhoui Chang)

Raed Al Saleh, who leads the White Helmets, was scheduled to attend the event after participating in talks in Ottawa, but cut his Canadian visit short in order to manage teams on the ground in Syria.

In a video message, Al Saleh stressed the White Helmets’ ultimate goal: “Our main mission is to save as many lives as possible.”

The group says they have saved more than 100,000 people, at great risk to their own safety.

“You’re faced with one of two existential questions at the moment that you’re heading to do your job: Do I save the other person’s life, or do I put my own life in danger and forfeit my own presence on this earth?” said Al Khalf, as translated by Mansour. “The decision has been consistent – to save other lives even at the expense of our own.”

Al Masri, one of the first female White Helmets, recently arrived in Canada after a tumultuous journey through Syria and into Jordan.

The former journalist was part of a group of White Helmets and their families who were evacuated from Syria in July, when they found themselves at ground zero of an aggressive Syrian government offensive.

Al Masri described her experience of being separated from her family as she awaited the green light to leave the country, and narrowly escaping attacks by government forces and Islamic State.

While Al Masri was on the run, Habib says he and his team frantically called and lobbied diplomats from other countries to ensure a safe passage out of Syria.

“The hardest part of this was waiting because you were never sure if you were actually going to make it or not,” Al Masri said, as translated by Mansour.

At the 11^th hour, Al Masri made it out of the country and, eventually, to a Jordanian refugee camp, where she said the conditions were “squalid.” She described her time there as “90 days in hell.”

Al Masri was eventually taken to Canada – and is now living in Hamilton, Ont. She said crossing the border into Canada was the first time she felt dignity and respect. Now, things are looking up, she said, adding that she’s seeing specialists to help with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

More than half of the Syrian population is now displaced within Syria, in neighbouring countries or around the world. But countries like Lebanon are pushing for the return of refugees to Syria.

“States around the region that are hosting large populations of refugees are now agitating for them to go home to Syria,” said Smith.

“How the international community responds to the political pressure, to the dwindling humanitarian aid and the informal ways that states around the region would like to compel people to go home – to go back to Syria – will have significant impacts on the future of international protection and the international refugee regime.”

Mustafa said the White Helmets are doing their part in Syria to create post-conflict programs in an effort to help civilian society regenerate itself when the war nears its end. He said the group is supportive of refugees returning home if there is viable peace.

For the students in attendance, particularly those interested in global affairs and public policy, the U of T event provided an opportunity to hear real stories behind the events that dominate headlines, Smith told U of T News.

“This is a defining issue of our time,” he said. “Hearing from people who are humanizing what can be quite abstract stories given the scale of the violence and destruction in Syria, I think is crucially important.”

Tarun Sharatkumar, who is working on a master’s degree in global affairs, said the event was a reminder that being a policy-maker means connecting directly with those who are affected by your decisions.

“For me, the biggest takeaway was that, more than talking or saying what you think, it's more important to listen.”

At a student reception following the event, the crowd heard from Firas Shapsough Rajab, who left Syria in 2012 to live in Turkey and often worked alongside Syrian front-line workers. He came to Canada in August and is in his first year of the Master of Global Affairs program.

Rajab had a poignant message for his fellow students in attendance.

“We shouldn’t disconnect ourselves from the face of humanity, how these things happen on the ground,” he said. “Not only in Syria but you have many places around the world where refugees are under extreme situations and policy-makers, as much as they want to make the right decisions, usually they make the efficient decision.

“These kinds of interactions are what brings us up to the next level – which is the right decision.”

Scholar-at-Risk: U of T's Noura Al-Jizawi, a key player in the Syrian uprising, became an opposition leader

ullahnor — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 14:10:24 +0000

Scholar-at-Risk: U of T's Noura Al-Jizawi, a key player in the Syrian uprising, became an opposition leader

ullahnor Tue, 09/26/2017 - 10:10

Cutline

Noura Al-Jizawi joins U of T's master's program at the Munk School of Global Affairs this year through a Scholars-at-Risk scholarship (photo by Noreen Ahmed-Ullah)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

International

Scholars at Risk

Seven months pregnant, wearing a bright yellow shirt and a flowery hijab to cover her hair, it’s hard to imagine this petite woman sitting outside the Munk School of Global Affairs as a die-hard revolutionary.

In fact, the University of Toronto master’s student in global affairs was in the thick of the Syrian uprising against Bashar al-Assad when it began six years ago.

“I was one of the crazy people who started the revolution,” Noura Al-Jizawi says with a grin. “All the time, revolutions are started by crazy people. It’s a kind of madness.”

Al-Jizawi, who came to U of T through a Scholars-at-Risk scholarship, was one of the young leaders who kickstarted the movement, which has gone from being a peaceful revolt to a full-scale civil war with more than 465,000 Syrians killed and over 12 million displaced in a conflict that now includes Islamic State and Russia in the mix. During the early years of the revolt, Al-Jizawi organized pro-democracy protests, ran a blog, posted photos of victims – many of whom were close friends killed by the regime – and travelled around Syria, mobilizing others.

She was detained several times, underwent torture and had family members who were arrested and beaten up. When the time came to escape to Turkey, she left on foot, a 20-day journey crossing rivers, climbing mountains and riding donkeys. There, she started an NGO helping victims of torture and female survivors, and advocating for those forcefully displaced. She became a vice-president of the Syrian opposition, one of the few female leaders in the national coalition against the regime, sitting across from Assad’s negotiating team and locking eyes with the enemy.

Noura Al-Jizawi (centre) with staff from Syria’s first regime-free publication, called Hurriyat or Freedoms (photo courtesy of Noura Al-Jizawi)

That’s what gives it away – Al-Jizawi’s eyes.

Their dark intensity speak to her steely resolve, courage and passionate drive to defend human rights.

“I trust the principles that I’m fighting for,” she says. “I will keep fighting for people’s rights around the world, not only in Syria.”

Read a BBC report about Noura Al-Jizawi

U of T’s Scholars-at-Risk program has been around since 1999, a partnership between the School of Graduate Studies and Massey College. Over the last seven years, the program has offered financial support to 24 graduate students and academics who have fled war or persecution in their homeland. This year, the university also offered fellowships to international students in the U.S. who have been impacted by President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions.

Al-Jizawi, who at times used her middle name Al-Ameer to protect her family in Syria, first heard about U of T when her email account came under attack two years ago.

The Munk School’s Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, came to her aid, analyzing the virus and publishing a report about a sophisticated cyber-espionage campaign against the Syrian opposition.

Read about the Citizen Lab report

When it came time to apply to a master’s program, Al-Jizawi said U of T was the only place she considered. She joins a growing number of human rights defenders and activists who come to study at the university, by way of Citizen Lab.

As vice-president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, Noura (Al-Ameer) Al-Jizawi holds a press conference in Turkey in 2014 to shed light on the torture faced by Syrian prisoners (photo by Gokhan Ayar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Ron Deibert, director of Citizen Lab, says he wouldn’t be surprised if Al-Jizawi goes on to become an influential leader in human rights.

He calls her story and that of her husband – Bahr Abdul Razzak, a former Syrian activist who Deibert has now hired as a researcher at Citizen Lab – “awe-inspiring.”

“The ordeals that they experienced while in Syria are terrifying, and yet the way they have been able to rise above those ordeals is both remarkable and wonderful,” says Deibert, who is a professor of political science at U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science. “Noura is a fierce defender of human rights. She is highly intelligent, thoughtful and articulate. Sometimes you meet someone young like her and say to yourself, ‘This is someone who will go on to do amazing things.’”

Al-Jizawi’s story begins in Homs, considered “the capital of the revolution.”

She was 17, a university student agitating against widespread corruption, lack of political freedoms and state repression under the Assad regime. The students met underground and passed around “illegal articles” secretly downloaded off the internet. Al-Jizawi was first detained for kicking an intelligence officer who was harassing her. The second time was for writing a fictional account of a dictator imposing a colourless world of blacks and whites.

“I remember clearly that I didn’t write anything political,” she says. “This dictator forces people to wake up at 6 in the morning just to listen to his speech every day. He collects books, stories and novels in the city and burns them. He forces women to change the colour of their hair and make it black. At the time, there’s a disabled woman, and she holds the revolution in her heart. She creates her own secret room and puts everything illegal in this room. She discovers by chance that the dictator is breaking all the laws because in his castle, he has candles, women with coloured hair. This dictator himself is wearing coloured clothes. They end up killing her, and her blood goes on the towel, and the towel becomes red.”

Political or not, someone read between the lines. Al-Jizawi was arrested.

After she was released, she stopped blogging and focused her attention on the Arab Spring unfolding across the Middle East.

“It was like a dream. When it started in Tunisia, I felt like yeah, it will come. It will come to Syria.”

The revolution arrived in March 2011.

Non-violent protests like these in Homs were organized by Noura Al-Jizawi and fellow activists in the early days of the conflict in 2012. The photo was taken by a friend, Mazhar Tayara, killed by the regime that year (photo by Mazhar Tayara)

With Homs being a key city, Al-Jizawi became central in organizing demonstrations and documenting stories of victims forcefully detained, tortured and killed by Assad’s forces. She produced Syria’s first regime-free publication called Hurriyat or Freedoms, and worked tirelessly to get the revolution’s story out to international media.

As the uprising spread, the regime’s crackdown intensified.

On a trip from Damascus to Aleppo in 2012, four armed men boarded Al-Jizawi's bus and kidnapped her, covering her eyes, tying her hands and stuffing her into a car. It would take 40 days before her family knew her whereabouts or even if she was alive.

She steers the conversation away from the torture she endured. Guards beat her with electrical cords and electrocuted her, and made her watch friends being tortured under interrogation.

“Sometimes, I feel shy to share this because I survived, and thousands are still suffering,” she says. “They focused on how they will destroy me from inside. They attacked my brain. They asked about my family, about my activities, my friends. They were recording all my calls, so they were asking about every word I said over three months of calls.”

Friends and supporters around the world, including in London, held protests demanding the release of Noura Al-Jizawi and other women being detained in Syria (photo courtesy of Freedom For Activist Noura Aljizawi Facebook page)

It’s her younger sister, Alaa, who is Al-Jizawi’s hero. Figuring out that Al-Jizawi was likely detained – the sisters had worked out a code word in case Al-Jizawi was ever arrested – Alaa warned other activists not to respond to messages from her sister’s phone.

While Al-Jizawi gave interrogators fake accounts, created in case of an arrest, her sister was busy shutting down the real ones.

In detention, Al-Jizawi learned her younger brother had been arrested when they met, briefly, in the facility. On another occasion, she and other prisoners were moved to an underground basement, their mouths taped shut. She later learned it was because the Red Cross was coming to inspect the facility after an outcry from human rights groups and the United Nations.

Six months later, Al-Jizawi was finally released, only to learn her sister was being held and their family had left Homs after their house was repeatedly raided and attacked.

“We lost years of our lives as a family. My father was arrested. My brother, the first time he was arrested, he was only 16 years old. My sister also. And me myself. We lost years in detention.”

In her sister Alaa's case, the torture got so bad – guards hung her from her hands, beat her, electrocuted her – that in 2013, once her sister was released, the family decided to leave Syria and make the dangerous trek to Turkey to seek treatment.

“She was young. She was small. I feel like all the time she’s my heart, my life, and I have to take care of her. I feel guilty. They tortured her so badly because of me, because I was wanted.”

Al-Jizawi’s voice cracks. “For so many months, I didn’t have courage enough to look at her eyes. I felt like everything they didn’t do with me, they did with her. It’s harder than killing me.”

In early 2011, “the revolution” arrived in Homs, with peaceful anti-government protests. After a brutal crackdown by security forces and pro-Assad militia, tanks were sent in. With government forces laying seige to certain neighbourhoods, street battles ensued with opposition supporters taking up arms. Eventually, Assad forces regained control of the city. A scene in Homs from earlier this year after a double car bomb attack (photo by Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)

By the time Al-Jizawi decided to apply to U of T, she had been living in Turkey under a two-year passport from Syria, which cost $850 and required months of negotiations with the Assad regime.

Even getting her hands on certificates verifying her undergraduate degree proved difficult. Everything had been lost in Homs.

Today, Al-Jizawi is no longer with the opposition party. She resigned because she felt the party was bending too much to international pressure and not looking out for forcefully displaced Syrians and their right to return home one day. She remains confused by the lack of response from the international community.

“The surprise for me was the reaction of the international community. We said at the beginning of the revolution, this is the time of social media and international relations. We used Facebook and Twitter to publish videos and photos about everything that was going on. We shared photos of victims who were killed.

“It was hard to see. It was hard for us to share photos of people we love. But we tried to call on the international community, all human rights activists around the world, this is happening to us. What will you do? Sadly, the final report by the UN clarified that the regime committed massacres and used chemical weapons but nothing happened. Nothing.

“Those youths and women who were demonstrating were against dictatorship. We are against terrorists. War is not our choice. What we want for the future of Syria is we want peace, freedom, justice, democracy. We want to feel our dignity that we are humans in this country.”

Earlier this year, Noura Al-Jizawi participated at the United Nations' 34th regular session of the Human Rights Council (photo courtesy of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression)

Her six siblings are now scattered: two sisters in Sweden, a sister in Turkey, a sister and brother in Germany, and another brother in detention in Lebanon. Her mom and dad were split apart by the war: Her mom lives with one of Al-Jizawi's sisters in Sweden while her father is still in Damascus, not ready to give up on Syria.

“Every single moment, I want to call him. I want to make sure he’s alive. Every time I hear a bomb attack in Damascus, I feel scared. There’s no one there to support him or make sure he’s OK.”

As she begins her master’s, Al-Jizawi says she feels welcomed in Toronto, something she hasn’t felt in a long time.

“When I meet a new person in Toronto, and he says, ‘Welcome to Toronto,’ I feel like I need this. When I used to travel around the world and say I’m from the revolution, they would say, ‘Are you supporting ISIL [Islamic State]?’ Why am I supporting ISIL? Because I’m wearing hijab? It’s my identity, but it doesn’t reflect that I’m a terrorist. In America, it’s hate speech. In Canada, I don’t face this.

“I have found that people accept you whatever you wear, whatever your background and opinions, which is great. Maybe because of that, I didn’t choose any other country to apply.”

Once her baby is born, sometime around Nov. 5, Al-Jizawi plans to return to school.

Incidentally, the baby shares the same projected birth date as her sister Alaa’s baby. Al-Jizawi marvels at how that worked out. Both babies will also be girls.

“I see the baby as the future. It’s making me want to work more toward the future,” she says.

Noura Al-Jizawi with her sister, Alaa, in Sweden shortly before starting her master's program at the Munk School of Global Affairs (photo courtesy of Noura Al-Jizawi)

Chemical attack in Syria: U of T public health expert talks about Sarin

ullahnor — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 17:58:53 +0000

Chemical attack in Syria: U of T public health expert talks about Sarin

ullahnor Thu, 04/06/2017 - 13:58

Cutline

A medical staffer at a hospital in northwest Syria holds a little girl who is getting treatment following a chemical gas attack on a rebel-held town this week (photo by Mohammed Karkas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Nicole Bodnar

Author legacy

Nicole Bodnar

Topic

More than 80 people – including dozens of children – were killed in this week's suspected chemical attack in a rebel-held town in northwest Syria.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has previously argued against removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power, on Wednesday called the attack a “heinous” act that “crossed a lot of lines for me.” Syria and its main backer Russia have denied responsibility.

U of T's Dr. Howard Hu, dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and professor of environmental health, epidemiology, global health and medicine, has led human rights fact-finding missions on the effects of toxic exposures to civilian populations in conflict situations. He is a founding board member of Physicians for Human Rights and served as the director of the Research Commission for the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War on the health effects of atomic weapon production.

He spoke with U of T's Nicole Bodnar about how chemical weapons like the ones used this week kill victims by suffocating them.

How do chemical weapons like the ones used in the latest Syrian attack work on the human body?

Sarin, the agent likely used in the latest attack, is a super-potent chemical weapon in the anti-cholinesterase family of poisons that essentially works much like the chemicals used in some of the powerful insecticide products used in the past like Raid, but that are now largely banned for household use in North America.

It attacks the nervous system by interfering with the normal process of degradation of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine at neuromuscular junctions. In other words, instead of the normal process of impulses from nerves activating muscles and then allowing them to relax, the impulses are frozen in an activating phase, causing uncontrollable muscle spasms.

Death will usually occur as a result of asphyxia due to a victim's inability to control the muscles involved in breathing function.

Is there anything from the videos and photo images you’re seeing that can help identify what kind of chemical was used?

The physical signs of pinpoint pupils and foaming at the mouth in some of the photographs are consistent with the marked cholinergic-type chemical effects one would anticipate in victims of a Sarin-related chemical attack.

In your role with Physicians for Human Rights, can you talk about the banning of chemical weapons?

The use of chemical weapons was banned because they are weapons of mass destruction that kill indiscriminately, and there has always been a long-standing public revulsion over the use of science – in this case, chemistry – to kill human beings.

The International Committee for the Red Cross summed up the public horror at the use of such weapons in an appeal in February 1918, calling them “barbarous inventions” that can “only be called criminal.”

Syrian dissidents targeted by hackers: U of T's Citizen Lab

lanthierj — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 13:34:41 +0000

Syrian dissidents targeted by hackers: U of T's Citizen Lab

lanthierj Tue, 08/02/2016 - 09:34

Cutline

Syrian opposition politician Noura Al-Ameer received emails from a fictitious group that included malicious PowerPoint documents containing malware; in a curious twist, her own identity was falsely used to register the assadcrimes website

Topic

Citizen Lab

Research & Innovation

Political Science