Out of Your Cell

We are two future Syrian leaders. We have that perpetual energy to present one of the most catastrphic marginalized issue in our region. It is marginilized despite of its wide spread in the MENA region.

I am Batoul Alghafari, an eighteen years old leader, granted a Mastercard univerity scholarship to study Industrial and Managment Engineering at the American University of Beirut.

I am Bouthiana Alabrash, a twenty one years old leader, granted a USAID univerity scholarship to study Computer Science at the American University of Beirut. I am an intern at Digital Skills Training managed by Civic Engagment office at AUB.

We almost have the same past experiences,We voluteered a lot to serve multi-nationalities refugees in Lebanon. We planned and managed a project funded by the Lebanese Association for Scientific Researches. This is to support the Syrian student and to stop that sharp increase of the high school dropout.

The project reconsiders the most marginilized people in society. It gives them life again by changing the way of thinking that the whole society adopt when they encounter former prisoners. This makes them psychologically vulnerable and put imaginary rods infornt of them. These rods differ than those in prison, but it is so hard to overcome. The project aims to make people believe that prison is a place to enhance the human behavior and not a place to make prisoners suffer more and become an unuseful person on the globe. Implementing this idea in the mind of society is something hard,but it deserves to be highlighted. This is because it elevates the humanity principles and support them. Since changing old doctrines need to observe new facts. The project aims to provide the former prisoners with dignified work, education, financial aids to support their initiatives, and all logistics to make changes. 

The project serves at the first-place prisoners who have ended their prison period. It helps them have better life experience after going out of jail. There have been several cases confirming the violent behavior of these prisoners towards their family members and those around them, especially their children. By launching this project, we can reduce this aggressive behavior. This besides to ensuring the prisoners basic needs so they can have their own income for the first three months after going out of prison. Actuallly, in that period most prisoners are not able to work. This will positively be reflected on their families, who will accommodate with the prisoner's health and psychological well-being. 

“Out of Your Cell” will prove to society that the prisoner is a person who can prove him/herself in society if he/she has the opportunity to do so. This idea will help prisoners think constructively, forget some of the torture he/she was suffering from, and improve their psychological and physical stigma. Thus they will think about the idea that they have wasted several years in prison; and this will make them feel the guilt they committed previously then they will refrain from doing similar things.

our project consists of many stages:

1. Studying the cases of prisoners and classifying them into categories according to their needs. Supporting them with stipends for the first 3 months since they are able to do nothing in life. 

2. Providing the former prisoners with health care assurance to recover their physical injuries.

3. Providing them with assurance to tackle their psychological problems.

4. In this stage, prisoners can start their life peacefully, but the society will still discriminate them. For that reason, our NGO will communicate with many institutions to support the prisoners with job offers. This is after, rehabilitating them mentally and physically.

5. University Scholarship programs will be provided for those willing to continue their education. in addition to that, handcrafts workshops will be provided for those who like to have careers. 

6. Launching annual competetions for the prisoners who have ideas to give them funds to implement their projects. 

7. rasing awarness compaigns for the prisoners familes illustrating the hard period that the prisoners passed through. This is to alleviate the psychological pressure on the prisoners. 

The project serves at the first-place prisoners who have ended their prison period. It helps them have better life experience after going out of jail. There have been several cases confirming the violent behavior of these prisoners towards their family members and those around them, especially their children. By launching this project, we can reduce this aggressive behavior. This besides to ensuring the prisoners basic needs so they can have their own income for the first three months after going out of prison. Actuallly, in that period most prisoners are not able to work. This will positively be reflected on their families, who will accommodate with the prisoner's health and psychological well-being. 

“Out of Your Cell” will prove to society that the prisoner is a person who can prove him/herself in society if he/she has the opportunity to do so. This idea will help prisoners think constructively, forget some of the torture he/she was suffering from, and improve their psychological and physical stigma. Thus they will think about the idea that they have wasted several years in prison; and this will make them feel the guilt they committed previously then they will refrain from doing similar things.

.....

We encountered many former prisoners; we compared their behavoiur before and after the prison period. Sorrowfully, the prisons in our country destroy the human values. So we noticed many cases, where the former prisoners still in their imaginary psychological cells, their rods is different after they are out. They sit alone, do not talk, shout out of the blue, have endless nightmares, have problems with their families most of them ending by divorce,have no friends, and many of them believe that human rights is a big lie. This discription makes us believe that the prison is inside them. This discription is not a result of one prisoner story, but of many . This is the beinnigng of the idea. We came up with it when we saw these cases, and decided to raise their voices up once we get the opportunity to do so.

We are passionate about "Out of Your Cell" project since we noticed the disppearence of the human values, and we think that we are in the right place working on elevating the human values in society. 

Becaue of the very harsh violence the prioners were exposed to, they do not mind if someone is killed infront of them. It is something very ordinary comparing to their exprience of torture they observed at jail. 

We are human and we are here to feel, help and make each other prosperous as much as we can. 

We escape from the war, we were on the edge of death, we were totally devastated, we helped each other to build up our personalities and values again, we strived in a new community to say "Yes, refugees can make difference", this enabled us to get two of the most powerful and effective scholarships at one of the most leading universities in MENA region. This opportunity implements the hopes in our souls. 

We want the prisoners to feel the same we felt, to have hopes again and life again. 

We understand how much it is difficult to persuade a hopeless person to love life again, how to persuade him/her to start from zero, to build up new life form death, how to prove yourself among all discrimination around. all what these catagory of people need is the support with understanding to their circumstances. 

We can feel them, and as a result persuade them to be prosperous again. We have good communication skills what ease dealing with both the prisoners and the professional people who are working on this project.

In addition, we were in contact with many prisoners. This gives us the adventage to know their needs. So we have good experience in this field. This experience is based on our background as a young refugees leaders.

As a result, this background that raises ur experience on how to deal with former prisoners, enabled us to have an accurate knowledge and to describe carefully the needs of the former prisoners. 

I came to Lebanon with almost zero educational background. This is because during the siege period in Syria. There were no available schools. 

In Lebanon, they use the foriegn languages-i.e, English and France languages- widly. The curriculm is set to teach all the scientific courses in English, and I  barely had knowledge about the meaning of Apple. It was a very hard period. I bought a dictoinary, and translated 4 to 6 pages daily. I memorized more than 3800 English word in four months, and we wrote every day an essay.  

Actually, one day I got dissapointed because after all my efforts to have a good English language, I still not able to understand the lessons without translating them word by word to Arabic. I cried a lot. I decided to read some English stories. I did with the help of dictionary. Then I had an American friend in my neighbourhood. She helped me a lot to get the American accent. And I started to read with no dictionary in my pocket. 

It was a very hard obstacle that gives me a wonderful opportunity to learn English professionaly in one year.

Our project name “Out of Your Cell” has been born from the crisis that we have passed through which is our lives “Out of Our Country”. A similar issue to our project is what we have experienced when we left Syria because of war; is what we have felt when we set our feet for the first time on Lebanese soil. We reached Lebanon with no money, no acquaintances, no clear image about the future. We had only our minds; these minds that made us maintain our achievements. We desperately needed someone to help us, take us out of those bad life circumstances, make us forget the sounds of shells and the smells of death. To find a solution to our suffering, we started to search for institutions, organizations, and programs that may help us. And with our determination, we could do it. We first found an opportunity to learn Digital basic skills at a local charitable organization. It led us to discover more organizations in Lebanon such as the Lebanese Association for Scientific Research where we implemented our first project with . Then we could participate in several similar projects either as members or as mentors.