At the start of the academic year, 35 students with a refugee background were enrolled at the HR. Profielen interviewed three of them. This week: Jenny (24)
Studies: Accountancy, first year. Also studied accountancy in Syria, but that study programme was not recognised in the Netherlands.
Originally from: Al-Qamishli, Syria Studied in Aleppo
In the Netherlands: Since March, 2013
Fled: With her family
In asylum seekers’ centre: Two days

‘We had a truly beautiful house in Al-Qamishli, a flat with three bedrooms. It’s where I was born and raised. I miss my parental home, the kind of place where you always feel welcome. We are completely adrift now. We’ve lost our history. When we left, we only took the bare essentials with us. I don’t have any baby pictures anymore, for example. We don’t even know if our house still stands, or whether our belongings are still there.’ Her father died in Syria, where he was buried. ‘Our ties with him are gone, too…’
All she has left is a plastic bracelet in the colours of Syria’s flag. ‘I always wear that bracelet.’

‘A little less than three years ago, my family decided to leave Syria, because it was becoming too dangerous. But my sister and I, who were both studying in Aleppo at the time, didn’t want to go. We were hard at work building a future, and we didn’t want our hopes and dreams dashed. We didn’t have a choice but to leave. It was terrible.’
‘Ten days before we left, my best friend went to the university. She was there when it was bombed. She died in the attack.’
[…] ‘After that, I wanted to leave as well.’
[…]

‘We first went to Lebanon, after which we continued to the Netherlands. Some of our relatives were already living here, in Rijswijk, and we were fortunate enough to be able to move in with them. We only spent two days in an asylum seekers’ centre. Our whole family is here now. There is no one left in Syria.’

‘I wasn’t able to do much in the first seven or eight months, because I was far too traumatised. But I slowly started regaining my energy, my will to live, and the drive to make something of my life.’

Jenny is currently in her first year of the accountancy study programme. She studied accountancy in Syria as well, at the University of Aleppo. She was in her fourth year. The two programmes are very similar, she says, although her education in Syria was more theoretical compared to the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. ‘What’s difficult for me is the feeling of having wasted three years of my life. I was very close to completing my studies and I had to start over from scratch in the Netherlands, with both my education and my driving licence.’

‘I also struggled with the question of how you can possibly focus on your studies when your friends are dying. I’ve managed to turn that train of thought around: I’m studying for them. My father dreamed of seeing our diplomas. So I’m going to get my diploma for him. My friend and I dreamed of following a Master programme together. I’m going to make that dream come true, for her.
‘Since then I have obtained my driving licence in the Netherlands, and I am doing well at university. I’ve managed to get all of my credits so far. It is a lot of hard work, though, because I’m not as proficient in Dutch as my classmates are. During the last exam period I worked around the clock. I didn’t sleep for days.’

‘How can you study when your friends are dying?’

‘It was difficult for me to connect to people at school in the beginning. I’m 24 years old, and I’ve been through a lot. There are boys and girls in my class who are only eighteen, fresh out of secondary school, who have never experienced war. We are currently in the third period and my fellow students know my Dutch isn’t perfect, which gives me the confidence to be more open, so my interactions with my classmates has improved a lot. The student counsellor and my study career coach are also a big help.’

‘I don’t interact with many Dutch people outside of school, which is why I would like to join a sports club or something similar. And when I’m going to do an internship, I will do so at a Dutch company. Not just to perfect my language skills, but to build a solid network in the Netherlands as well.’

‘Syria was so nice, the stores and cafés were always open, and life on the streets was so much more lively than it is over here. I miss that. In Syria we spent a lot of time outside, while we mostly live inside over here. Back there it is easy to just visit someone unannounced, which you can’t really do here. But that isn’t all that important in the end. We have a house, we are all studying, I have a driving licence again and my siblings and I are doing well at school. The older you are, the harder it is to learn a new language. That’s why it is harder for my mother than it is for us. I’m very proud of the fact that she is at C1 level (proficient user, ed.). She was a school principal in Syria, and I hope she can find work here as well.’

‘The people here are nice and everyone is equal to each other. That’s something I noticed, and I like it. We are safe here, and that’s what matters.’

Dorine van Namen