A team of three Women’s eNews staff reporters entered Jordan‘s Za’atari Refugee Camp for the first time on September 11, the official launch of Collateral Damage Syria: Women and Girls Fleeing Violence.
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Women’s eNews Arabic editor Dominique Soguel, staff reporter Hajer Naili, and development associate Touline Habake will be reporting from the camps and surrounding suburban neighborhoods in Jordan over a one-month period.
The special series will highlight the unique risks Syrian females face, as well as the work they are doing to combat them. Habake will also spearhead an oral history project to preserve the stories of Syrian women living as refugees.
You may follow the progress of our journalists online at wensyria.tumblr.com. Status updates will also be posted on the Women’s eNews Twitter and Facebook pages.
Collateral Damage Syria: Women and Girls Fleeing Violence was largely supported by contributions made by donors at the May 1, 2013 Women’s eNews 21 Leaders for the 21st Century Gala, following the public announcement of the project.
Women’s eNews then completed a final $15,000 round of funding in just 16 days through Catapult, the online crowdfunding platform supporting social justice efforts for girls and women. See our updates on Catapult at http://www.catapult.org/project/collateral-damage-women-and-girls-syria
No other news organization has the global focus and sensitivity to women’s voices that Women’s eNews has, or its varied impact including:
- Helping to set the news agenda for conventional media;
- Impacting opinion leaders and policymakers;
- Serving as a resource and catalyst for rights organizations and activists;
- Uncovering injustices, drawing attention to issues, disseminating information, and empowering readers.
- Sensitizing other news agencies to women’s issues that conventional media tend to ignore.
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Dominique Soguel, Arabic Women’s eNews editor Dominique Soguel is a news journalist focused on the Middle East. She has been working for more than five years for Women’s eNews, managing its Arabic site and filing stories from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Ethiopia and Syria. Primarily a writer and photographer, she recently branched out into video, working for AFPTV Middle East and North Africa. In 2012, Soguel served as the AFP correspondent in Tripoli, Libya. Soguel holds a joint M.A in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from New York University and a B.A. with honours in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. She speaks English, Spanish, French and Arabic. |
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Maher Abdallatef Maher Abdallatef, from Palmyra Syria, came to Jordan as a refugee in January 2012. Since arriving in Amman, he has studied English at the British Council and worked as a volunteer distributing aid to fellow refugees in Jordan. In Syria, he sold jewelry and worked with tourists. He loves to cook traditional meals. |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
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Radwan Abdellatef Radwan Abdellatef came to Jordan as a refugee in July 2012. Like his cousin Maher, he worked with tourists in Palmyra and has taken English lessons at the British Council in Amman to improve his reading and writing schools. He loves to eat traditional meals and take part in camel races |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
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Hajer Naili Hajer Naili is a Women’s eNews staff reporter. She worked as a Reporter/Presenter for several radio stations in France including Lebanon Radio Orient in Paris where she focused on international news with a special focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Naili has also contributed as a writer to American online magazines such as Illume Mag and Elan The Mag covering stories on American Muslims. She graduated in Information and Communication from the University of Letters and Arts of Nice, France. |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
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Shafika Mattar Shafika Mattar is a print journalist, TV news producer and a trilingual translator in French, English and Arabic. Mattar has worked for foreign media in Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war and the first Gulf War. In Jordan, she worked for the Associated Press as APTN producer and a news reporter for 15 years. Currently, she free-lances for foreign media. Shafika holds degrees in translation from the Sorbonne and a journalism degree from L’Institut Francais de Press. |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
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Mayss al-Zoubi Mayss al-Zoubi is the founder of Tamkeen Initiative for Community Development. She is a Syrian human rights activist who had to leave Syria in late 2011 and is now based in Amman, Jordan. Al-Zoubi works with grassroots activists because she believes in power of the individual and community. She also stays close to international media trying to amplify the unheard voices of Syrians and trying to get the world to act upon its international duties. Al-Zoubi believes that we are all human and we need to share the responsibility of making our world better and protecting our fellow humans from injustice, oppression and greed. |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
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Touline Habake Touline Habake has been working for non-profit news organization, Women’s eNews for 3 ½ years, where she has been the development associate and grant writer. Prior to joining the Women’s eNews team, she worked for seven years in corporate accounting and finance. She couldn’t be happier to have made the career transition into the non-profit sector where she can utilize her passion for social justice and humanitarian issues. Habake is fluent in Arabic and holds a B.A. in Economics with a focus in Finance. |
 Collateral Damage Syria. |
