"They’re not used to seeing women doing street work like journalism"

July 18, 2016 3:53 PM

Zaina Erhaim (Twitter) is an award-winning journalist and project coordinator with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting based in Aleppo, Syria. She is training citizen journalists in the area, a third of whom are women.

Some of her work:
Scenes from the Syrian war.
Her blog.
An interview with Amanpour on CNN.
The road to Aleppo.
And you call us terrorists?
Frontline video on training women citizen journalists in Syria.

"Being a Syrian journalist, as you would expect, is something much more different than just being a journalist in a war zone. For me, those people that I’m reporting and writing on, they’re dear friends and family members. Because you’re a journalist, you’re put on the wanted list of the regime, the military, the state and the air force, although I don’t even know how to ride a bike."

posted by sockermom (8 comments total)

Thanks for this post!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:16 PM on July 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is cool, thanks for posting. Important work.
posted by Miko at 5:50 PM on July 18, 2016

Saving this for later--thanks so much for the post! I'm excited to learn more about Ms. Erhaim's work.
posted by epj at 5:59 PM on July 18, 2016

this is a great post!
posted by zutalors! at 6:48 PM on July 18, 2016

This is a great post. Thank you.
From the Amanpour link
Erhaim also touched on the exodus of Syrian refugees to Europe.
"They are not running away from war, but they're running toward life," she said. "They can't see the light at the end of the tunnel any more."
And now Europe is shutting that door. I have friends working with the Refugees in Greece and it is grim.
(Derail ahead) The worlds six wealthiest countries host less than 9% of world's refugees
posted by adamvasco at 7:54 PM on July 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thanks for the post. The "Scenes from the Syrian war" link is heartbreaking in so many ways. She's doing amazing work and it's hard not to fear for her.
posted by billiebee at 12:37 AM on July 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jesus, Scenes from the Syrian War is absolutely brutal. And we're putting up fences to keep these people out.

Thanks very much for sharing.
posted by smoke at 5:47 AM on July 19, 2016

Thanks for this post.
posted by languagehat at 7:49 AM on July 19, 2016