Ahmed Ahmed, 26 years old, and Abdulhamit, 27 years old, both nurses in Izmir

The workday is nearly done in the nurse station of the Refugee Health Training Centre in the Karabaglar neighbourhood of Izmir, Turkey. The corridors are virtually empty, except for Ahmed Ahmed and Abdulhamit. The men are both Syrian refugees, and the opportunity to work as nurses at the Centre has given them a new start after living through harrowing experiences in their native country.

Ahmed came to Turkey in 2014 from Cobankoy, a village near Aleppo. As a Turkish speaker, he was able to assimilate fairly easily. He began working in the Centre in 2017.

“My village was wiped off the map,” shares Abdulhamit. “When ISIS started to approach my village, I escaped. My little brother, my friends, my relatives, they all died.”

Ahmed relates how the Refugee Health Training Programme helped them both open up about their experiences in Syria. “After finishing the practical trainings, we decided to arrange a celebration,” he says. “The doctors brought flowers for us. Our eyes filled with tears at this gesture. We never spoke of war until that moment. This was the first time we asked each other about our experiences. Many of us had lost our mothers, fathers and siblings.”

“In the beginning, I did not want to learn Turkish,” says Abdulhamit. “My only dream was to return to my country. But I have changed my mind. I still want to go back because my family lives there, but now I am trying to understand Turkish culture.”

“We are a community that needs to be reborn,” adds Ahmed. “There is an entire generation that was not educated. We have to give them education. It makes me happy to help Syrians. These Centres do not just provide primary health care but they also offer many education sessions about health care, on topics such as breastfeeding and birth control. These sessions may be helpful to educate this generation.”

It can be painful, though, to realize that Syrian refugees could call Turkey home indefinitely. “I was in Sanliurfa [a south-eastern city of Turkey] and I saw a little Syrian boy who was selling handkerchiefs on the street,” says Abdulhamit. “I asked him, ‘Where are you from?’ He answered in Arabic, ‘I am from here.’ I asked him questions about Syria, but he had not heard anything about the country. This was the most emotional moment I have had in Turkey.”