TWO volunteers have returned from close to the Syrian border after seeing first hand the difficulties faced by refugees there.

 

Friends Jill Bell, 61, of August End, George Green, and Chris Collinge, 70, of Bell Close, Wexham, were part of a group of six who travelled to Lebanon as part of supporting UK aid charity, Embrace the Middle East.

 

The two, who are members of St Mary's Church in Church Lane, spent a week travelling through the country where they got within 25 kilometres of Syria itself.

 

The pair are volunteer speakers for the charity and got to see firsthand how partners of Embrace were helping to give refugees back their lives in difficult conditions.

 

Mrs Bell, a mother of three and former lawyer, said she was surprised how there were no camps at the border and those who had fled Syria had to find their own accommodation.

 

She said: "For some it is overcrowded flats for others they are living in makeshift tents in the Bekaa Valley fields which is astounding since temperatures can get particularly low there."

 

She added: "It was very thought provoking and interesting. The people we met were so full of hope. I expected them to be sad because of all they had lost but they had a focus on the future and were very determined to go back and rebuild their country."

 

As part of the week, Mrs Bell and Mrs Collinge spent time personally meeting and talking with a number of vulnerable Syrian refugees, both Muslim and Christian, as bombs could be heard exploding in the distance.

 

They met one of the charity's partners, led by a church pastor, who is helping to give the refugees food, clothing, education and medical care in Zahle city. There are more than half a million Syrian refugees in the city itself and the climate is often 10 degrees colder than inland in Beirut.

 

Mrs Bell said: "One thing he does is a 'tent school' because it is a school for people who are currently living in the tents in the fields."

 

Another Embrace partner at a different church had divided their building into rooms, which are now used as classrooms for around 300 primary school children, many of whom have been traumatised by the civil war. However, one year on, pupils are showing signs of increased progress at the school.

 

For more information about the charity, visit www.embraceme.org/