The baby goose and his mother are driven from their home by drought. While seeking water, they end up at a pond with lots of other geese. There, the young geese decide they will stop misbehaving if it means they can go home. The rains return, the drought ends and it all finishes with a happy homecoming.
An obvious allegory perhaps, but the story – written by a British-based Syrian woman – is proving a hit with the children and parents of camps within Syria itself.
Samah Zaitoun wrote the children's tale Far From Home in an effort to provide optimism to the many hundreds of thousands of displaced children, and a fable that they could relate to. As many as half of an estimated six million people uprooted by the Syrian conflict are thought to be children, and Zaitoun said she wanted to give them "something of their own and provide optimism, an escape from reality and an explanation of their situation, as well as giving their parents some relief". She realised that many refugees couldn't explain to their children why they couldn't go home. Far From Home was intended to bridge that gap between parent and child.
So far 6,000 copies have been distributed – 2,000 to the Al Karama camp and 1,000 to the Atma camp in northern Syria. The remaining 3,000 have been given to villages in Aleppo and Idlib. A further 3,000 are being printed for distribution in Lebanon.
Zaitoun left her birthplace of Damascus almost 10 years ago. After having two children, she enrolled in a course in children's book illustration at Anglia Ruskin University. When a friend told her of a plan by Unesco entitled Books for Syria to commission books for refugee children, she got to work.
The simplistic English and Arabic narrative, colourful imagery and animal characters aim to reinforce the book's message "It will stop when we stop", without being too stark a reminder of the brutality of the Syrian civil war. Zaitoun believes that the solution lies in an end to individual corruption and wrongdoing. She said the Syrian government "forced Syrians to make mistakes, not to live a completely honest life. The corruption of the government triggered the corruption of the people."
As Books for Syria prepares to distribute its next book, Me and Him by Zeina Kanawati, Zaitoun is already planning another publication. She aims to include a message of hope for the parents as well, who will hopefully be reading the story aloud. Ultimately, however, she hopes to return to Syria and build a home for those orphaned by the crisis. Sadly, that goal looks a long way off.
