On Monday, 19-year-old Syrian refugee and education activist Muzoon Almellehan made history by becoming the youngest Goodwill Ambassador named by UNICEF. She is also the first person with official refugee status to become an Ambassador with UNICEF.
Muzoon, now settled in England, is known for her work in rescuing young girls, especially in conflict-ridden zones, from early marriage, and encouraging them to prioritise their education. She is known as “Syria’s Malala”, inspired by Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and Nobel Peace Prize winner.
How did Almellehan get to where she is?
Born on April 8, 1999, Almellehan grew up in the southwest Syrian city of Daraa. The civil war that ravaged the country forced thousands to flee and in February 2013, the Almellehan family crossed the border into Jordan in the middle of the night and settled in a refugee camp in Zaatari. Muzoon was studying in a school there but the family was uprooted again, this time to another camp, in Azraq. It was here that Muzoon first met Malala, who was visiting. The two became good friends and were reunited later.
The UN Refugee Agency, which had came to the camp to resettle more refugees, offered to settle the Almellehans in another country. The family rejected offers to relocate to Canada or Sweden. However, Muzoon had already been negotiating on her own to move to England. The British Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, had pledged to resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees. Two months after Cameron’s speech in Parliament, the Almellehans flew to Newcastle, England, to start a new chapter.
The family, part of a batch of 1000 Syrians resettled across the country before Christmas 2015, were given refugee status on arrival, with five-year visas. Unlike several refugees who often have to wait months for accommodation, Muzoon and her family were settled into a fully functional house and she and her siblings were granted admission in a local school.
Muzoon’s efforts towards promoting education among young girls like herself began during her 18-month stay in Zaatari, where she was supported by UNICEF in her cause. Malala had heard of Muzoon’s work there and was looking forward to meeting her.
“There were many girls who were forced into marriage, it was so devastating,” Almellehan told Reuters recalling her time at the camp. “I wanted other girls to feel the hope that I felt so I went from tent to tent trying to prevent the marriages and get more girls in schools.
“Fleeing war and seeing your country being destroyed is one of the hardest things that children can face.”
Muzoon said it was a challenge convincing certain parents that getting a girl married off early wouldn’t always guarantee that their futures are secured. “Yet I tried to make them [families] understand that the opposite is true; that education was the best way to secure girls’ futures,” Muzoon told the Guardian last year. “Girls in my culture get married so young, but not all relationships work. If your marriage isn’t working, education can be a weapon to escape. If you are not educated then nothing can protect you.”
Muzoon recently travelled with UNICEF to Chad, where she met with children forced out of school due to the Boko Haram conflict in the Lake Chad region. In Chad, it is reported that nearly three times as many girls as boys of primary school age in conflict areas are missing out on education. According to UNICEF, refugee children and adolescents are five times more likely to be out of school than their non-refugee peers, and girls affected by conflict are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys. An estimated 25 million children of primary and secondary school are out of school in conflict zones, thereby making them all the more vulnerable towards exploitation.
Muzoon has ambitions of being a journalist and hopes to return home to Syria one day.
