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In-kind Assistance: Warm Winter—Rural Banias, Tartous

Mariam was barely 20 years old when she gave birth to her first child. Although hardly 25, she is now mother to two daughters. Repudiated by her husband, she had to return to her father’s, along with two little girls on her lap, devoid of any source of income to provide for her offspring. She now dwells in a cold, mountainous, rural area, in a small room, built painstakingly upon her request by her brothers, in respect for her privacy.

After the girls started going to school, the situation worsened, especially with the coming of winter. Her almost bare room had no proper furniture, nor a heater even.


Mariam was monitored by the SSSD ORVs, who referred her to the In-kind Assistance Program. Her first, pressing request was to provide her with a stove to fight off the bitter cold and get some warmth with her two little daughters. As she was previously unable to help the girls with their lessons, she used to go to her parents’, or to the house of some relatives of hers, to seek some warmth—not to mention the girls being prone to frequent colds and flu because of exposure to bad weather conditions.


Being provided with the stove, Mariam can now keep warm and safe in her room and help the girls with their homework, sparing herself the embarrassment of embarrassing anyone. She no longer has to buy medicines or wait endlessly in a doctor’s waiting room.