It started with an eager student asking a stranger in Ħamrun to help him with his homework and ended with a visit to a refugee camp in Lebanon.

The Bar Elias camp in the Bekaa Valley.

A group of Maltese volunteers, who have just returned from the camp, now hope to encourage others to share their skills with Syrian refugees, some of whom were born during a war that has ravaged their country for more than seven years.

One of the volunteers, David Rossi, said it was this prolonged suffering that inspired them to visit the camp after addressing the educational and social needs of those seeking refuge in Malta.

“It all started when one day, on my way home, a boy tugged at my trousers and asked me to help him out with some mathematical fractions and English grammar issues,” Mr Rossi explained.

“Ahmed was receiving secondary education at a Maltese school, but he was finding it difficult to settle down. He needed some guidance and assurance to keep up with his peers.”

This incident kicked off a series of weekly study meetings for Syrian refugees coordinated by a team of volunteers. The meetings included storytelling, numeracy and literacy guidance, and the volunteers wondered whether they could extend their support to refugees who were based closer to their home country.

Eager refugees at the camp.

With the help of people from the Lebanese community, they left for the Bar Elias camp in the Bekaa Valley, which provides refuge to vulnerable Syrians, mainly those from Aleppo, Hama and Homs. 

“One of the refugees at the camp recounted how her husband was found under the rubble of their once elegant residence in downtown Homs. This grim discovery was the first in a series of tragedies that saw her move out of her hometown.

“At the camp children play and dream of an unknown place: Syria – a proud country that was once home to an ancient civilisation but now hosts a brutal conflict,” Mr Rossi said, adding that the group of volunteers showed the refugees that there were “people who cared about them”.

Among others, they shared cooking, knitting and educational skills with the refugees, extending, in a way, the system they had adopted with Syrian refugees in Malta.

“One of the things we kept in mind throughout our visit was sustainability. So, for example, during the cooking sessions we showed the residents how to prepare delicious meals with reasonably priced healthy products such as semolina,” he said.

Those interested in following in the volunteers’ steps and helping out the refugees can get in touch with Mr Rossi on daviddrossi54@gmail.com.

A classroom at Dibo camp.