Young Syrians taking social action

Over the last seven years of war in Syria, millions of Syrians have left the country to make new homes across Europe and the Middle East. They face many challenges when moving to new communities far from home, from learning new languages to finding work, getting in to education and accessing local services.

A business meeting with Syrian man and a Syrian woman

For two days, young Syrian social activists living across Europe came together for a workshop in the Netherlands to address some of the challenges they face. Their task was to design social action projects to improve relationships between Syrian community members and their European host communities.

The Aswat Faeela (Active Voices) project supports young people to develop social leadership skills so they can promote peacebuilding and play an active role in strengthening ties between host communities and the Syrian diaspora.

A group of Syrian adults have a discussion

After the workshop, the participants will further develop their advocacy initiatives and connect with other young people from across the MENA region, so they can speak up about the issues their communities face and promote solutions together.

Aswat Faeela is a truly unique initiative, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and countries in a physical space to share common experiences and learn from one another. The relationships and ideas that are formed through the project show how young people are able to develop answers to the toughest of challenges when they’re provided with the space to talk and work together.

The young people mentored through Aswat Faeela can take the skills they’ve learned and use them to advocate for peacebuilding initiatives at the policy level in their own communities.

A person displays wrist bands in Arabic

Together for Syria

Follow the journey of these young people as we share the stories of inspiring young Syrian peacebuilders and social activists as they build peace far away from home.


About the project

Aswat Faeela (Active Voices) is a project to develop the social leadership skills of youth who have been affected by the ongoing and protracted Syrian crisis.

International Alert Syria is part of this regional project which aims to give them a voice in national and international conversations about peacebuilding and community resilience as an antidote to the dominant narrative around the impact of conflict.

It adopts a two-fold approach. Firstly, it supports emerging social leaders to work within their communities to find local solutions to issues that challenge them on a daily basis. Secondly, it builds coalitions so young people can advocate more effectively together around common themes. In this way, they are able to relate their everyday experiences at the community level to wider political and policy priorities at the national and international level.

The project is funded by the European Commission​, led by the British Council and implemented through a consortium of partners (including International Alert, Search for Common Ground and Globally Connected).