WEBVTT

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So I started working

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with refugees because I wanted

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to make a difference,

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and making a difference starts

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with telling their stories.

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So when I meet refugees,

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I always ask them questions.

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Who bombed your house?

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Who killed your son?

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Did the rest of your family make it out alive?

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How are you coping

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in your life in exile?

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But there's one question that always seems to me

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to be most revealing, and that is:

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What did you take?

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What was that most important thing

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that you had to take with you

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when the bombs were exploding in your town,

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and the armed gangs were approaching your house?

NOTE Paragraph

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A Syrian refugee boy I know

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told me that he didn't hesitate

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when his life was in imminent danger.

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He took his high school diploma,

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and later he told me why.

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He said, "I took my high school diploma

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because my life depended on it."

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And he would risk his life to get that diploma.

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On his way to school, he would dodge snipers.

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His classroom sometimes shook

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with the sound of bombs and shelling,

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and his mother told me,

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"Every day, I would say to him every morning,

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'Honey, please don't go to school.'"

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And when he insisted, she said,

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"I would hug him as if it were for the last time."

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But he said to his mother,

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"We're all afraid,

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but our determination to graduate

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is stronger than our fear."

NOTE Paragraph

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But one day, the family got terrible news.

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Hany's aunt, his uncle and his cousin

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were murdered in their homes for refusing

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to leave their house.

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Their throats were slit.

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It was time to flee.

NOTE Paragraph

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They left that day, right away, in their car,

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Hany hidden in the back because they were facing

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checkpoints of menacing soldiers.

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And they would cross the border into Lebanon,

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where they would find peace.

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But they would begin a life of grueling hardship

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and monotony.

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They had no choice but to build a shack

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on the side of a muddy field,

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and this is Hany's brother Ashraf,

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who plays outside.

NOTE Paragraph

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And that day, they joined

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the biggest population of refugees in the world,

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in a country, Lebanon, that is tiny.

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It only has four million citizens,

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and there are one million Syrian refugees living there.

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There's not a town, a city or a village

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that is not host to Syrian refugees.

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This is generosity and humanity

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that is remarkable.

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Think about it this way, proportionately.

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It would be as if

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the entire population of Germany,

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80 million people,

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would flee to the United States in just three years.

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Half of the entire population of Syria

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is now uprooted,

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most of them inside the country.

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Six and a half million people

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have fled for their lives.

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Over and well over three million people

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have crossed the borders

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and have found sanctuary
in the neighboring countries,

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and only a small proportion, as you see,

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have moved on to Europe.

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What I find most worrying

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is that half of all Syrian refugees are children.

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I took this picture of this little girl.

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It was just two hours after she had arrived

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after a long trek from Syria into Jordan.

NOTE Paragraph

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And most troubling of all

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is that only 20 percent of 
Syrian refugee children

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are in school in Lebanon.

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And yet, Syrian refugee children,

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all refugee children tell us

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education is the most important thing in their lives.

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Why? Because it allows them to think of their future

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rather than the nightmare of their past.

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It allows them to think of hope rather than hatred.

NOTE Paragraph

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I'm reminded of a recent visit I took

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to a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq,

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and I met this girl,

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and I thought, "She's beautiful,"

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and I went up to her and asked her,

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"Can I take your picture?"

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And she said yes,

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but she refused to smile.

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I think she couldn't,

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because I think she must realize that she represents

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a lost generation of Syrian refugee children,

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a generation isolated and frustrated.

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And yet, look at what they fled:

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utter destruction,

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buildings, industries, schools, roads, homes.

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Hany's home was also destroyed.

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This will need to be rebuilt

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by architects, by engineers, by electricians.

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Communities will need teachers and lawyers

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and politicians interested in reconciliation

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and not revenge.

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Shouldn't this be rebuilt

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by the people with the largest stake,

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the societies in exile, the refugees?

NOTE Paragraph

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Refugees have a lot of time

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to prepare for their return.

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You might imagine that being a refugee

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is just a temporary state.

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Well far from it.

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With wars going on and on,

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the average time a refugee will spend in exile

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is 17 years.

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Hany was into his second year in limbo

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when I went to visit him recently,

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and we conducted our entire conversation in English,

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which he confessed to me he learned

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from reading all of Dan Brown's novels

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and from listening to American rap.

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We also spent some nice moments of laughter

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and fun with his beloved brother Ashraf.

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But I'll never forget what he told me

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when we ended our conversation that day.

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He said to me,

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"If I am not a student, I am nothing."

NOTE Paragraph

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Hany is one of 50 million people

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uprooted in this world today.

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Never since World War II

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have so many people been forcibly displaced.

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So while we're making sweeping progress

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in human health,

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in technology, in education and design,

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we are doing dangerously little

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to help the victims

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and we are doing far too little

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to stop and prevent

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the wars that are driving them from their homes.

NOTE Paragraph

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And there are more and more victims.

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Every day, on average,

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by the end of this day,

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32,000 people will be forcibly displaced

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from their homes —

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32,000 people.

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They flee across borders like this one.

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We captured this on the Syrian border to Jordan,

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and this is a typical day.

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Or they flee on unseaworthy and overcrowded boats,

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risking their lives in this case

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just to reach safety in Europe.

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This Syrian young man

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survived one of these boats that capsized —

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most of the people drowned —

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and he told us,

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"Syrians are just looking for a quiet place

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where nobody hurts you,

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where nobody humiliates you,

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and where nobody kills you."

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Well, I think that should be the minimum.

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How about a place of healing,

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of learning,

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and even opportunity?

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Americans and Europeans

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have the impression that proportionally

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huge numbers of refugees are coming

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to their country,

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but the reality is

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that 86 percent, the vast majority of refugees,

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are living in the developing world,

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in countries struggling with their own insecurity,

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with their own issues of helping their own populations

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and poverty.

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So wealthy countries in the world should recognize

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the humanity and the generosity of the countries

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that are hosting so many refugees.

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And all countries should make sure that no one

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fleeing war and persecution

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arrives at a closed border.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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But there is something more that we can do

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than just simply helping refugees survive.

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We can help them thrive.

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We should think of refugee camps and communities

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as more than just temporary population centers

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where people languish

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waiting for the war to end.

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Rather, as centers of excellence,

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where refugees can triumph over their trauma

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and train for the day that they can go home

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as agents of positive change

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and social transformation.

NOTE Paragraph

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It makes so much sense,

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but I'm reminded of the terrible war in Somalia

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that has been raging on for 22 years.

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And imagine living in this camp.

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I visited this camp.

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It's in Djibouti, neighboring Somalia,

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and it was so remote

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that we had to take a helicopter to fly there.

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It was dusty and it was terribly hot.

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And we went to visit a school

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and started talking to the children,

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and then I saw this girl across the room

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who looked to me to be the same age

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as my own daughter, and I went up and talked to her.

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And I asked her the questions

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that grown-ups ask kids,

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like, "What is your favorite subject?"

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and, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

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And this is when her face turned blank,

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and she said to me,

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"I have no future.

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My schooling days are over."

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And I thought, there must be some misunderstanding,

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so I turned to my colleague

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and she confirmed to me

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there is no funding for secondary education

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in this camp.

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And how I wished at that moment

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that I could say to her,

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"We will build you a school."

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And I also thought, what a waste.

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She should be and she is

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the future of Somalia.

NOTE Paragraph

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A boy named Jacob Atem

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had a different chance, but not before he experienced

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terribly tragedy.

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He watched — this is in Sudan —

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as his village — he was only seven years old —

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burned to the ground, and he learned

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that his mother and his father

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and his entire family

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were killed that day.

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Only his cousin survived, and the two of them

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walked for seven months —

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this is boys like him —

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chased and pursued by wild
animals and armed gangs,

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and they finally made it to refugee camps

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where they found safety,

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and he would spend the next seven years

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in Kenya in a refugee camp.

NOTE Paragraph

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But his life changed

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when he got the chance to be resettled

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to the United States,

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and he found love in a foster family

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and he was able to go to school,

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and he wanted me to share with you

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this proud moment

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when he graduated from university.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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I spoke to him on Skype the other day,

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and he was in his new university in Florida

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pursuing his Ph.D. in public health,

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and he proudly told me how he was able to raise

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enough funds from the American public

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to establish a health clinic back in his village

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back home.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I want to take you back to Hany.

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When I told him I was going to have the chance

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to speak to you here on the TED stage,

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he allowed me to read you a poem

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that he sent in an email to me.

NOTE Paragraph

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He wrote:

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"I miss myself,

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my friends,

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times of reading novels or writing poems,

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birds and tea in the morning.

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My room, my books, myself,

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and everything that was making me smile.

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Oh, oh, I had so many dreams

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that were about to be realized."

NOTE Paragraph

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So here is my point:

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Not investing in refugees

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is a huge missed opportunity.

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Leave them abandoned,

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and they risk exploitation and abuse,

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and leave them unskilled and uneducated,

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and delay by years the return

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to peace and prosperity in their countries.

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I believe how we treat the uprooted

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will shape the future of our world.

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The victims of war can hold the keys

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to lasting peace,

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and it's the refugees

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who can stop the cycle of violence.

NOTE Paragraph

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Hany is at a tipping point.

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We would love to help him go to university

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and to become an engineer,

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but our funds are prioritized for the basics in life:

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tents and blankets and mattresses and kitchen sets,

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food rations and a bit of medicine.

00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:30.916
University is a luxury.

00:15:30.916 --> 00:15:35.253
But leave him to languish in this muddy field,

00:15:35.253 --> 00:15:37.214
and he will become a member

00:15:37.214 --> 00:15:40.636
of a lost generation.

00:15:40.636 --> 00:15:45.340
Hany's story is a tragedy,

00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:49.073
but it doesn't have to end that way.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:49.073 --> 00:15:51.450
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:51.450 --> 00:15:55.045
(Applause)