Since the beginning of the devastating war in Syria, Syrian children have rarely been infused with joyous moments and celebrations. Hence, the Eid al-Fitr celebration is considered the best time to create happy moments for children that they will treasure most, including wearing new clothes, waiting for parents and relatives to give them eidi. Eidi, in fact, is just a token amount of cash, that makes children happy and buy what they want, a pleasant feeling that children get once a time in their monotonous life, away from the armed conflict, forced displacements or loss of their loved ones. Eidi does have positive impacts on their psychology.
Molham Volunteering Team/ Inspire Your Humanity (MVT) organized a campaign within the days of Eid al-Fitr, last week, to distribute Eid clothes and eidi to the neediest children in northern Syria, and displacement camps in Aleppo countryside.
Volunteers from the MVT distributed eidi on the first day of Eid al-Fitr in Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, and Darat Izzat, Tasneem Fatta, the human resources coordinator of the MVT told Enab Baladi.
The campaign expanded outside Syria. Eidi was distributed in the Syrian refugee camps in Aarsal, northern Lebanon.
The campaign entitled “Eidi 7” is part of a series of campaigns launched by the MVT each Eid, through which Eid clothes and gifts are handed out to children.
Tasneem Fatta pointed out that eidi envelops are packed shortly before the Eid. A symbolic sum of around two US dollars is put inside each envelope. Then, the field teams distribute them on the morning of the first day of Eid al-Fitr. The campaign continues until the second day to assure that the largest number of children receive eidi, according to Fatta.
Eidi distribution is not limited to a particular group of children during the campaign, as eidi envelops are given out randomly in the streets of cities. Most of the time, the team attempts to focus eidi distribution on the gathering sites of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Syria.
More than one million and 41 thousand and 233 people were forcibly displaced due to the recent military campaigns launched by the Syrian regime forces backed by its Russian ally, between November 2019 and 5 March 2020.
“The Syrian Response Coordination Group (SRCG)” has documented an increase in the number of returnees from the displacement areas to relatively safe villages and towns in Idlib and Aleppo provinces in northern Syria, following the ceasefire agreement on 5 March.
It is noted, in the human rights report released by the SRCG on 27 last April, that 40,015 families returned to villages and towns in Idlib and Aleppo countryside; 20.79 percent of the total number of the displaced population, which amounts to one million, 41 thousand, and 233 people.
According to the report, the total number of returnees amounted to 216,498, two-thirds of whom were children and girls, and the rest were male.
Fatta highlighted to Enab Baladi that the goal of the campaign is to create joy and happiness among children without regional or social discrimination. In actuality, this is why the team exists and tries to do all that time in general and not only during the “eidi” campaign, which is conducted every year.
The reason for this random distribution of eidi is not the lack of team’s organized work or the failure to read the reality of children clearly in the cities of northern Syria, but the MVT team knows well that children in conflict-stricken areas live under harsh living conditions. Every day the children are deprived of the necessary resources including love, safety, food and security.
The presence of the MVT is not linked to Eid al-Fitr days, but the MVT team has devoted, through its website, a special section for caring of Syrian children under the name ” Molham Events,” through which donors can contribute to the team events, such as birthday and graduation parties and other events that can be held with the children and their families in the camps.