Wollongong self-care project helping Syrian refugees deal with past traumas

“Give me my son. Here’s the money,” he said to the police chief.

The night before Mr Jenniyat’s only son was on his way home from the barber when he was kidnapped at a checkpoint by militia.

The 16-year-old was subsequently beaten and tortured.

Life in Syria was good for Mr Jenniyat and his family before the war.

He was a successful businessman, who exported and imported fruit and vegetables all over the Middle East and various European countries including Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Greece and Spain.

At his peak Mr Jenniyat was in charge of about 500 employers.

But the constant fighting, and that fateful day his son was taken changed everything.

The police chief was good on his word and handed Mr Jenniyat his son.

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But he warned him to leave Syria immediately, as he couldn’t guarantee that someone else wouldn’t take his son – and this time no amount of money would save him.

“There is a saying in Syria that the walls have ears,” Mr Jenniyat said.

“There is so much surveillance and intelligence everywhere.”

He fled the country that night with his wife and son. He returned the following day for his four daughters.

The Jenniyat family spent the next two years in Lebanon before making the move to Australia in mid-2014.

The 58-year-old lost all his life’s savings during the war but takes “some solace” from the “opportunities and successes” Australia has provided for his children.

Mr Jenniyat also benefitted “greatly” from participating in the federal government-funded ‘Self Care for Refugee trauma to Self-Actualize’ project. 

“The project was wonderful. It gave us hope and perseverance to overcome all feelings of despair and fear and interact with society in a positive manner,” he said.

“I especially enjoyed the beach walks and group talks.”

The 15 project participants took part in six, monthly psycho-education and focus group sessions as well as weekly beach walks with a male exercise physiologist and female counsellor.

Therapeutic bilingual Arabic counselling sessions were also held at their homes and Russell Vale Family Medical and Acupuncture Practice.

It was at one of these sessions that Mr Jenniyat’s daughter told accredited mental health social worker Nina Trad Azam about the time 30 people, including neighbours and extended family, lived in a bunker under the family’s home for 15 days.

“The biggest shock to her was coming out of the bunker when the candles went off and the food had run out and the shelling had stopped,” Mrs Azam said.

“She opened the door, the sunlight was coming in, she saw every single thing levelled on the ground. All the buildings she used to know, were no longer there, they were pretty much rubble.

“And she said to me, that's the thing she can't get out of her mind.

“She is now 14 but this happened when she was eight, going on nine. That’s her formative development. That’s where the trauma and PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] comes from.”

Sabiha Abdin owes United Nations and Australia a debt of gratitude she will never be able to repay.

The Australian government took in the 73-year-old widow almost four-years ago knowing she had kidney renal failure and required ongoing dialysis treatment.

That’s why the mother-of-eight is so grateful for Australia’s “compassion and humanity”.

But while she can not fault Australia's care and treatment and respect, and everything it has done for her – at times she feels guilty.

Read more: Wollongong students helping entrepreneurial refugees

“She feels guilty that she has put her own life and her health needs before her children and her motherly needs to be with them. So that saddens her,” Mrs Azam said.

Mrs Abdin also worries she will die before she sees her children and “about 35” grandchildren again.

Her dilemma is that she is too sick to travel to Syria and the Australian government has twice rejected her eldest son’s request to visit his elderly and sick mother.

She also has no family in Wollongong, and relies on carers, Mr Jenniyat and his wife, who themselves are refugees, to take her to hospital three days a week for dialysis treatment.

“That’s why she really enjoyed taking part in the project,” Mrs Azam said.

“She loved the fact that I talk to her in Arabic and have helped her in my professional capacity and as a trusted friend.

“I’ve tried to lift her spirits and give her hope and empower her to stay strong.

“We have a plan. If she gets her citizenship and she is healthy enough, I’ll organise for medical treatment in Syria and take her there if need be, to visit her family.”

They can hear the laughter of kids and adults’ voices alike but when the fireworks go off in downtown Wollongong, Abed and his wife Mona lock the doors and windows and take shelter in their own home.

The fireworks re-trigger in them all the fear and memories of life in war-torn Syria.

Even when they hear police and fire brigade sirens, or see a police officer in uniform, they “fear for their lives”.

Abed says it has nothing to do with the police here, who are “polite and well-intentioned”.

 “I just remember how horrible and oppressive police were in Syria. I also remember when the gangsters tortured me in 1982,” he said.

Mona is “scarred” by the image of her house in Damascus being destroyed by shelling.

When it rains she “remembers the smell of dead bodies”.

“They were born in oppression. They have had a very difficult time in their life because of the city they were born. It is like the government really had it in for Hama,” Mrs Azam said.

“Abed is now too scared to even talk for fear of saying the wrong English word. He also has lost his self-respect and worries about his children’s future.

“The project has helped though because they found someone who understands them, who empathises with them, teaches them to look after their self care and reminds them of their dignity, which has been trodden on.”

Ob Mohammed – (Mother of Mohammed – her first born son)

Ob Mohammed used to wear a burqa until her daughter was attacked in Wollongong last year when wearing the garment.

She now wears a hijab but was “too afraid” to be photographically identified for this article.

She did however want to thank the Australian government for its “very generous” NDIS plan for her son, who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and an intellectual disability.

“Housing and employment opportunities are a concern for me,” she said.

Illawarra Mercury