After Awareness Foundation Little Heroes in Lattakia, our team of volunteers travelled 75 miles south to Safita at the invitation of our dear friend and International Consultant, Bishop Demetrios Charbak, the Greek Orthodox Bishop of Banias.
This was our second year in Safita. Over 350 children of every denomination were waiting eagerly for us. As before, the theme for this year was “the Story of the Field”.
Each day started with prayer, followed by a Bible story, reflections on the story, scenes from a play, art and craft activity, singing Hymns, and sports and games. During the day, we stopped for two short breaks and lunch. The children particularly enjoyed learning a new Hymn over the course of the three days, as well as a new Verse from the Bible each day, and each verse was presented in a new way. We also did this in Lattakia.
We found out that the children were so keen that they were arriving at the Essam Freij Centre even before the leaders. This experience has made the children stronger, it has given them reassurance and comfort, and they have all made many new friends to support them in the year ahead. We believe that we have achieved our goal in both cities to bring a smile to the children and to give them a new certainty and hope.
At the end, the children did not want to go home and this gives us even more energy to bring the Little Heroes programme to all communities in Syria and beyond.
We could not have achieved our goals without the support of our team of volunteers from Lattakia, and we thank each of them. We are especially grateful to all who generously supported this project, and to Ajnahat Al-Nasour, a Christian group which prepared and planned all of our games.