Humans from Syria

“Everyone here has been very nice to us. When we got to the beach, there were people there who gave us food and a hug. A priest even gave us this carpet to pray on. He told us: ‘We have the same God.’”

Humans of New York is a blog. Founded by the Photo Journalist Brandon Stanton, his objective was first to capture the people of New York. There is so much diversity that he thought he could tell a story through their pictures. That soon led to writing brief stories with the picture. From New York, he went to prisons to talk about the people incarcerated. He loves to tell 'their' story-- whoever 'they' happen to be. With the recent refugee situation in Syria, he has decided to blog and create a photo journal of some of the refugees to inform the public of what is going on. 

I loved this picture. There are many emotions that are going on all around. In the previous post, this family is in front of the camera and the description depicts their story in the months prior to the picture that led up to their homelessness. They were recieving texts that they needed to pay their money to someone they did not know, they tried to ignore them and then they woke up with their home on fire. Shortly after, they got another text that they would be killed if they stayed. That is the fear that refugees around the word have to live with, HOW HORRIBLE? 

The brutal facts, 

More than 4.5 million refugees from Syria are in just five countries Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt:

• Turkey hosts 2.5 million refugees from Syria, more than any other country worldwide
• Lebanon hosts approximately 1.1 million refugees from Syria which amounts to around one in five people in the country
• Jordan hosts approximately 635,324 refugees from Syria, which amounts to about 10% of the population
• Iraq where 3.9 million people are already internally displaced hosts 245,022 refugees from Syria
• Egypt hosts 117,658 refugees from Syria

The UN’s 2015 humanitarian appeal for Syrian refugees was just 61% funded by the end of the year.

Funding shortages mean that the most vulnerable Syrian refugees in Lebanon receive just $21.60 per person month or around US$0.70 cent a day for food assistance, well below the UN’s poverty line of US$1.90

86% of Syrian refugees in urban areas in Jordan are living below the local poverty line.

I am grateful for good people around the world that see a need and make a difference. At the top is the description to this photo, what a good man that preacher is. I too believe, as did the preacher, that we may be different by culture, religion, race, color-- whatever it may be-- but at the end of the day, "We have the same God."

You can follow Humans of New York @humansofny

UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), International Organization of Migration (IOM)