About

Germany’s VDSH member organisations, with partners in Syria, have conducted agricultural projects in besieged and starving Ghouta, renovated, re-built and run schools, pre-schools and orphanages, supplied and run hospitals as well as initiated drinking water projects, vocational training for medical staff and midwives, medical first-aid training for laypersons and humanitarian aid of all kinds in besieged areas. They have also implemented community-based projects and trauma training for social workers and medical staff.

One of their German-based NGOs, Alkawakibi, was founded in Berlin in 2012 by oral surgeon, Bassel Alsaeed.

While the NGO generally promotes democracy and human rights, it specifically initiated a medical project to treat the high number of patients with facial defects resulting from the conflict.

In cooperation with the German-Syrian Association for the Promotion of Freedoms and Human Rights (known as the DSV in Germany), Alsaeed and his team volunteered to conduct facial reconstruction surgeries in the Turkish-Syrian border region, treating wounded people in Idlib in Syria and Reyhanli in Turkey. Apart from caring for patients, the team also trained Syrian colleagues, creating an infrastructure for the treatment and aftercare of patients.

“Whether patients receive reconstruction of eyes, ears or fingers,” said Dr. Alsaeed, "they simply don't know how to thank us. They become social beings again."

Dr. Alsaeed has been traveling to the Turkish border near Syria since 2015. Initially, he travelled with one technician, medicines and supplies, and in their first three or four days on site, they treated about five patients. Two months later, after they successfully treated a patient’s eyes, they were also able to train a Syrian technician who met them in Turkey.

Between that first visit four years ago and now, the project has trained four technicians and treated between 500 and 600 patients. One technician receives a salary through Alkawakibi and three others receive compensation through Syrian NGOs that work in cooperation with Alkawakibi.

"We are not grant-writing professionals," said Dr. Alsaeed. "VDSH helped with the grant application and established connections to the governmental donors."

Lilli Kardouh, Managing Director of VDSH (until 5/2021), said of the project: "It is a unique idea that also has multiplicators."

© Bassel Alsaeed

A girl treated within Alkwakibi’s project of facial reconstruction