| Summary: | What is it like to be a young Iraqi refugee in Syria? Through the words of Dounia, a nine year old girl, and Ahmed, a ten year old boy, we get an insight into the lives of two young Iraqis whose families have been forced to flee Iraq and move to Syria to get away from the continuing violence in their country. We see the children at home and at school. Ahmed talks about how he misses his father who was killed back in Iraq, but also tells us how he has had no problems settling into his new school, where he has made both Syrian and Iraqi friends. Dounia has missed over a year's school because of her unsettled life. Neither of her parents have jobs, so her 16 year old brother is the family's only breadwinner. Dounia talks about the difficulties of missing school and being put in a class with much younger children, including her six year old sister.
There are many teenagers amongst the estimated one and a half million Iraqi refugees living in Syria. Often these young people are the only ones in their families who manage to get work in their new country - helping out in shops, on building sites or as cleaners. 16-year-old Seif talks about his life as the sole breadwinner in his family. He works in a café with three other teenage Iraqi boys. He works seventeen hours a day for the equivalent of £18 a week - money which he immediately hands over to his parents. Seif feels he now has little chance of training to be an engineer, his ambition when he was younger. The programme also includes a discussion with a group of teenagers who do attend school. They talk about what it's like to be living as refugees away from their home country and discuss how they feel about being put in classes with much younger Syrian children, their negative feelings about the American presence in Iraq, and their hopes for future.
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