Dr. Abdulkarim Ekzayez, Faddy Sahloul, Dr. Aref Razouk, Abdullatif Alzalek and Alaa AlBakour

Sara — not her real name — is a 16-year-old Syrian girl who fled to Lebanon with her parents and brothers soon after fighting reached her hometown in 2011. While displaced, Sara’s father died, plunging the family into poverty and forcing her and her brothers to drop out of school. Life was hard.

However, the situation in Syria changed dramatically in December 2024, when the country underwent its political transition and a fragile peace returned to Sara’s hometown.

Sara and her family decided to return to see what remained of their house and livelihoods, but their homecoming was far from a fairytale. Her house was still standing, but bare, so the family crowded into her uncle’s house. Neither Sara nor her siblings could afford to go to school and her older brother developed an eye disease the family could not afford to treat, affecting his sight and ability to work. Sara’s mother longed to start a cooking business to support the family but lacked the tools or startup capital.

After suffering years of displacement, poverty and trauma, Sara fell into a deep........

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