Watch the video recording of this event below:
This special event was held at UBC with the White Helmets delegation to Canada where they discussed their rescue operations in Syria and answered audience questions. The event also included a short video screening and poetry, with a light dinner provided by Tayybeh, a social enterprise catering company run by Syrian women sharing their rich culinary tradition and connecting to the community.
The program began with remarks by Dr. Amira Halperin, followed by a short video screening. Our panelists shared their experiences and expertise and responded to questions from the audience. We edned with a poetry reading in Arabic by Rawan Nahhas, a former Syrian refugee who settled in Canada 16 months ago.
The White Helmets, aka the Syrian Civil Defense, saved more than 100,000 civilians during the Syrian civil war. Several members are visiting Canada to speak about their work. They’ll be joined by a fourth speaker who is a Syrian refugee now living in Vancouver.
- Majed Al Khalf, founding White Helmets’ volunteer
- Maysoon al Masri, journalist and the White Helmets’ first female volunteer
- Jihad Almahammed, White Helmets’ volunteer
- Mohammed Alsaleh, Syrian refugee turned award-winning public activist
- Moderator: Dr. Amira Halperin, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, and a member of UBC Migration
We heard about:
- the White Helmets’ rescue operations in aerial bombardment zones
- their journalistic mission of documenting the conflict when the world’s journalists no longer had access to the front lines
- the Canadian government’s humanitarian assistance in Syria
- resettlement in Canada
- Alsaleh’s imprisonment, torture, escape to Lebanon, and migration and integration into Canada
- why technology is important to refugees
About: The White Helmets is a humanitarian group that operates in anti-government held areas. While the Syrian-Russian military coalition conducted indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations in areas like Eastern Ghouta, Idlib, Daraa and Quneitra, the White Helmets were pulling the injured from under the rubble, burying the dead, putting out fires, and conducting countless search and rescue operations. They bore witness to many of the atrocities that characterized the conflict.
Learn more about their work in this Guardian article, “How Syria’s White Helmets became victims of an online propaganda machine.”
In July of 2018, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, released the following statement in support of The White Helmets. Please read it here. The Canadian government has worked to resettle a group of White Helmets in Canada this past year. Read more details here.
Biographies:
Majed Al Khalf joined The White Helmets in 2013, and since then, he has been a student at the University of Aleppo at Engineering faculty. He has participated in international meetings at the United Nations on the humanitarian situation in general, on Migration and on Internally Displaced People (IDPs). He won the Emmy Award for his 60 minute episode. He has been nominated to attend the 2016 Young Leaders’ Conference in Colombia and nominated for the McKin Institute of Courage in America. He has participated with an international team in Kosovo for the Explosive Remnants of War (ERW).
Maysoon Al Masri was the first female volunteer of the White Helmets female team. Before the Syrian uprising, she worked for the Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, for four years as a journalist in the city of Daraa, but since the beginning of the Syrian revolution she has been working independently to document Assad forces’ violations against civilians. She has also helped with providing educational and psychological support to children in Daraa. She joined the White Helmets since the foundation of the organization in 2015 as a volunteer for Centre 1511 in Daraa. Now, she acts as the person in charge of women’s affairs.
Jihad Almahammed – was a civil servant who worked at the Commercial Bank of Syria before the revolution. Cognizant of the political injustice happening in his country, Mr. Almahameed joined the peaceful protest at the start of the Syrian revolution, believing in the power of civil work and community empowerment. He helped lead the peaceful civil movement before he was then arrested by the Syrian regime in June of 2012. Upon his release, Mr. Almahameed established a service to provide repair services to Syrian communities bombarded by the regime, and the group was later merged with the White Helmets.
Mohammed Alsaleh is originally from Syria and uses the adversities he had faced in life as a refugee himself to bring others hope and inspiration. After losing his cousin to cancer, Mohammed decided to become a physician with a specialization in oncology. But during his time in medical school, his entire life changed as the Syrian conflict broke out. After surviving imprisonment and torture, Mohammed fled his home to Lebanon and made his journey to seek refuge in Vancouver.
Now, Mohammed is an international speaker and an advocate, raising a voice for thousands of people going through the hardships he experienced first-hand. As a two-time TEDx speaker, he’s an active advocate for refugee livelihood and well-being. A recent recipient of the 2018 RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award, he has been recognized from the likes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan, and Hollywood Actor and Activist George Takei. From Syria to Canada, his journey was famously featured in the documentary “Welcome to Canada”.
Dr. Amira Halperin is a Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia and a member of UBC Migration. She researches the integration of Syrian refugees and immigrants to Canada through media, information and communication technologies. She has been researching marginalized populations and media for 15 years, working from a community-base and using participatory methodology and an interdisciplinary approach.
She holds an MA in International Journalism, and PhD in Communication and Media from the University of Westminster, United Kingdom. She is the author of the book ‘The Use of New Media by the Palestinian Diaspora in the United Kingdom’, 2018.
Amira worked as an Investigative Journalist and Television Correspondent (1998 – 2006). The highlight of this route was her work, in London UK, on BBC ‘Panorama’ (2004 – 2006). She has been regularly interviewing as a commentator on international media.
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Co-hosted by: The Department of Sociology, The School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, and Development and Alumni Engagement, Faculty of Arts
