A house kept warm with a mother’s love

Rural Damascus, Syria – “At night, my daughter takes off her jacket to cover the cracked window and stop the cold from seeping into the room while we sleep,” said Amal, 35, from Beit Sawa village in East Ghouta of Rural Damascus, Syria. Amal is a mother of six: Hilal, 22, Bader, 17, Reem, 16, Raneem, 13, Yousef, 12, and Tasneem, 8.

In 2015, she lost her husband and the father of her children to the conflict. Her youngest was only three months old then. After Amal’s husband passed away, she moved with her children from her in-laws’ house to her parents’ place. It is where the families of her three brothers also took shelter. “The house was overcrowded. I started to buy and resell bread made of barley to make a living and support my family. I’d get up early in the morning, go with my children to a bakery and queue for packs of bread to resell them in town,” Amal explained.

“Those days were harsh. We didn’t have enough money to eat every day. The children would go to sleep with empty stomachs sometimes,” added Amal wiping her tears. In 2018, when there was a respite in fighting in East Ghouta in Rural Damascus, Amal’s family took shelter in an abandoned house in their hometown. She took on many arduous jobs to support her children until she began to clean houses in a nearby town to make a living.

“I use half of what I earn to buy Reem’s medicine. My daughter has epilepsy and needs to take the medicine for the rest of her life,” said Amal, looking emotional, as she tried to get herself together. “We can afford to have one meal a day. It’s worse during wintertime. The burden becomes heavier and the need to keep my children warm worries me.”

Amal’s barely furnished apartment is a home filled with love. The family seems to enjoy the time they spend together, bonding, in the living room. Three mattresses, a small carpet, and a heater that emits heavy smoke are placed there. But amid the continued economic crunch in the country, prices of fuel among other goods keep soaring and it is increasingly difficult to heat their home. It means Amal is forced to feed the small heater she has with plastic, tissues, or wet wooden pieces that the children collect from the surrounding areas.

In August 2022, UNICEF-supported young volunteers, who were visiting the village, enrolled Amal’s family in UNICEF’s Cash for Winter programme. “Many people had visited us before. They would be touched by the difficult circumstances we live in and promise to support us, but never come back,” said Amal. “But the support turned out to be real this time!” she added with a smile.

Amal used the money she received through the programme to buy Reem’s medicine and essential food supplies. “When I go to work now, I feel reassured that in case I don’t make enough money during the week I’ll be able to feed my children,” she said. “This is the first winter in a long time that I feel happy,” Amal added.

In August 2022, UNICEF launched its Cash for Winter programme, aiming to reach over 200,000 highly vulnerable people and children in urban slums across the country, affected by a high level of displacement and severe damage of housing stock, during wintertime of 2022-2023.

After identification and registration, families receive three rounds of cash assistance, one round every two months during the winter season. All families are accompanied throughout the winter by a dedicated social worker to help them. The humanitarian cash transfer is linked with social protection service providers, through referrals, to provide a more sustainable support to the vulnerable children identified during the programme. The referral component focuses on children with disabilities, out of school children and children with no legal documents and refers them to the official entities to issue the needed legal documents, register children at school and refer children with disabilities to UNICEF’s Integrated Social Protection programme that supports them. The activities are funded by UNICEF’s Global Humanitarian Thematic Fund and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).