Winter Cold and Lots and Lots of Hats!

In September Studio Syria started a yarn club in Zaatari Refugee Camp. It was fun and successful with many women and kids making their own warm clothing and enjoying the therapy of creating, learning and teaching. Hats, gloves and sweaters were made and worn proudly.

It soon became clear, however, that the need in the camp for warm clothing was dire, so with winter approaching Studio Syria's Laurie Balbo decided to keep as many children warm as she could. Partnering with her friend in Ireland, Virginia Nitz, the women collected 4000 donated hats! With shipping donated by DHL and a hefty customs duty fee paid by Laurie's fundraising effort, the hats were delivered to Zaatari Camp on Wednesday. The American organization International Relief and Developement coordianted. The next day the camp was hit with snow that became the worst storm Jordan has seen in many years. You can see Virginia's Facebook about her hat collecting adventures here. And read about Laurie's customs adventures here.

Studio Syria, based in Seattle, served as a collection point for American hat makers involved in the project. We collected over 500 hats and gave some to our local friends the Salaam Cultural Museum who have already distributed them to refugees in Jordan. We also sent a selection to refugees in Turkey with Play4 Syria. The rest will be hand carried by Jean to Jordan in December. See photos of all the American hats on the Studio Syria Facebook. 

Meanwhile Canadian knitters did not want to be left out and have been adding to the mix.

What a crazy wonderful scheme Laurie and Virginia. And what glorious results! Laurie's next plan is to raise cash for shoes and socks. Having warmed the heads and hearts of 4000 kids already she is taking care of cold and wet feet too. Donations of money for shoes can be made to Studio Syria or directly to Laurie's Paypal. If you don't think kids should have bare feet and sandals in freezing weather please donate. We'll buy new socks and used shoes in Amman.

And if you are in the Seattle area you can drop off donations of new socks, pajamas and underwear - as well as clean blankets and warm clothing (used is fine) at the Salaam Cultural Museum. Rita will ship them to Jordan for refugees there. She also needs vitamins and children's cold medicine. Containers leave from Seattle regularly. Read about Rita's efforts on her blog.

Give money to Studio Syria here.

Give blankets and supplies here:

Studio Syria
1618-10th Avenue W
Seattle, WA 98119

The Salaam Cultural Museum
3806 Whitman Ave. N, Seattle WA 98103 (Wallingford)
Thank you.



Opal looks at an aerial photograph of Zaatari camp and guards some of the Seattle hat collection.

Hats on heads. Seattle's Salaam Cultural Museum distributed these hats in November.

These hats were distributed at a SCM clinic in January. 

Art Exhibition

Studio Syria will be exhibiting original drawings made by the children of Zaatari refugee camp from 7-10 November in Seattle at the Affordable Art Fair. Founder of Studio Syria, Jean Bradbury, will speak about her experiences teaching art in the camp on Sunday 10 November at 3:30pm. You can read an interview with Jean here. 

See you at the Fair!

Studio Syria Partners with other Organizations

As a small organization Studio Syria finds it beneficial to partner with larger groups to reach as many children as possible. We work in Zaatari Camp with security clearance and a great deal of assistance from Save the Chilrdren Jordan. We are currently working with International Relief and Developement to supply their library. We delivered art supplies to the UN Women's center in Zaatari. And we went shopping for art supplies with childhood trauma specialist Alexandra Chen from Mercy Corps in September to help to supply their child friendly spaces. You can hear an brief NPR interview with Alexandra about her work here.

Fundraiser for the Salaam Cultural Museum

If you are in the Seattle area please join the wonderful people working with the Salaam Cultural Museum for an evening of music and food. They have been taking a huge amount of medical and educational aid into Jordan and Syria for displaced people. Let's support them in their work by attending this fun event on 24th October. It's at Harissa Mediterranean Cuisine, 2255 NE 65th St, Seattle, WA 98121.

Studio Syria - What We Did With Your Donation

Jean is back from her September visit to Zaatari refugee camp. She taught art workshops for four days with an open door policy for children of all ages and genders. Studio Syria partners with the amazingly devoted staff of Save the Children Jordan to facilitate this. Jean also held an afternoon art workshop in a facility provided by United Nations Women and donated supplies to them.

We'd like to thank Bernadette Ward of PanPastels for donating such amazing supplies that let the kids "paint" without water.

Under the guidance of expert knitter Laurie Balbo the Studio Syria yarn club was launched using yarn donated by people in Seattle and British Columbia. Laurie also cleared out much of her personal collection for the crafters at Zaatari.  The club became so popular that we moved it outside to make room for more women and girls.





Studio Syria purchased and donated hair dressing supplies for the hair dressing school at the UN Women facility. We'd like to thank Jonathan Flint and the staff at Seattle's Salon Joseph for their support of this.





Studio Syria purchased $140 worth of Arabic children's books and delivered these along with 150 donated children's books to the new Zaatari Library.  We'd like to thank Beatrice Cross at publisher Pan MacMillan and author Karen Asfour for their generosity.

We will supply International Relief and Development with more books, pencils and notebooks to assist with their literacy campaign and the opening of two more libraries. We think this library is one of the most heart warming things we have ever seen.

Studio Syria distributed a couple of thousand pencils, markers, colored pencils and notebooks to children along with 200 copies of our specially designed activity booklet.



This young girl holds a typical Studio Syria gift of an activity notebook, pencil, markers and a pencil sharpener. She has also been given bottled water and a nutrition enriched cookie from Save the Children.

With funds from Studio Syria Jean donated $700 worth of art supplies to the Child Friendly Spaces soon to be opened at Azraq Camp.

We also met with the psychologists of Save the Children Jordan to discuss future art therapy workshops. And with the staff of Save the Children International's team who runs the 21 Child Friendly Spaces in Zaatari to discuss how to help them provide creativity to children in the camp.

It was a very busy and productive week. We have much clearer ideas about how to avoid the inevitable distribution problems and are delighted to have made so many contacts with agencies happy to receive our help.

Most of all we will never forget the smiles on the faces of the children who made art with us and the loud and joyful scenes of children having fun and using their imaginations.

Finding Houssam

After six months Jean returned to Zaatari camp again and found some old friends. Houssam looked so much older - but is still the happy, funny little kid she remembers. 

He took part in our hat making workshop and looked so handsome in his creation. 

This guys hat was made by his sister who didn't want to pose for a photograph. She was happy to dress up her little brother though.

A lot of mothers and grandmothers took part in the hat workshop - helping with the glue and staplers. Some of them modeled their kids' creations with pride.

Days after the workshop Jean could see kids in the camp still wearing their hats.

Jean poses with some Save the Children staff and Syrian kids. 

Studio Syria in the Jordan Times

It was great to work with Seattle based Alisa Reznick on this article in yesterday's Jordan Times. One small correction - the workshops Jean teaches at Zaatari last all day long - not an hour. There is so much need and so many kids wanting to participate. We have an open door policy - so every minute of the day is filled with color and wonderful mess and smiles.