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Dunya Habash, a student on the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and daughter of Syrian immigrants to the USA, has written an article for Refugees Deeply about a trip she made to Zaatari refugee camp, the people she met there, and how this challenged her preconceived notions of what a refugee camp and refugees would be like.

In summer 2014, when at college in the US, she wanted to do something to feel more connected to the struggle of her fellow Syrians. She therefore arranged to visit Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan to film a short documentary.

In Zaatari, Dunya met Amira and Oum Rasheed and learnt from them ‘the complete narrative’ of their experiences, not just the ‘snippets’ that are usually reported in the media and which can easily build misconceptions amongst readers. As she writes, “These hidden misconceptions, I later came to understand, had developed because there was always a missing element in the articles and videos I consumed about the refugees before visiting the camp: the individual stories of the refugees themselves, the background, the context.”

Read the full article here >

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