“During the KSrelief voluntary medical campaign I was a part of, the medical team performed an urgent cardiac catheterization on a 9-year-old boy named ‘Saleh’. After the successful procedure, I met his father and saw reflected in his expression his deep thankfulness and appreciation to the team for saving his son’s life. Saleh’s father told me, with a voice filled with happiness, ‘This is a dream, I can’t believe that my child is well and healthy in my arms!’ At that very moment, I found the feeling of self-worth that I’ve always been looking for.”

“While participating in a KSrelief voluntary medical campaign in Morocco, I met a woman who came from a city located about a six-hour drive from the city where the campaign was being implemented.

When she found out about the initiative KSrelief was implementing to provide open-heart surgeries for children, the woman traveled the long distance hoping that the medical team could help her four-month-old baby girl, who needed urgent surgical intervention to live.

After listening to the anxious mother’s story, I spoke with the medical team, who immediately agreed to see the baby; the next day, they performed heart surgery on her, and, thankfully, it was successful!

At the beginning of 2020, I participated in the launch of a project to support a school in Phatthalung province in Thailand. Seeing the people’s ambition to learn and need for education made me more certain that humanitarian work is not only about providing food and shelter; education is one of the most important pillars of development. I was overwhelmed as I witnessed how my country contributes to empowering those societies, believing that everyone has the right to education, and that investing in it is a cornerstone for the development of societies.

“On one of my visits to Bangladesh to follow-up and supervise relief aid distribution for Rohingya refugees, my colleagues and I stopped by one family’s tent to make sure that they had received the aid that had been allocated to them. A woman was living in the tent with her two daughters, one of whom was missing an arm. When I asked the mother what had happened, she told me that when they were fleeing to Bangladesh, her family was attacked; her daughter was seriously injured, and her husband was killed. This is just the story of one family. Every refugee has a story. When you are in the field, you witness the impact of what you are doing. This family, and many others, are completely dependent upon the aid being provided by humanitarian organizations. These families, and others like them around the world, are the reason why we keep supporting, keep giving. When you see on the ground how small efforts on your part can make such a big difference in the lives of others.

The thing that touches one’s heart the most is seeing the emotions of a mother. Layali, a newborn girl, was in the ICU after having a heart surgery during one of KSrelief’s medical volunteer campaigns in Al Mukalla, Yemen. The fate made Layali’s mother and I meet. I did all my best to help this poor mother seeing her child behind the ICU windows. Her reaction, emotions, and tears touched my heart, and all her thanking words and prayers gave me a greater motivation, and strengthened my desire to volunteer more.

I had gotten used to “the good life” – smart phones, plentiful food, and achievable dreams. I thought this life was available to everyone. While I was taking pictures at the opening of the Yemeni refugee camp in Djibouti, I saw the little girls’ dreams through their eyes. I captured their smiles – their ultimate ambition was to be in a picture. One of the girls stood in front of me asking me to take a picture of her that shows a smile that I knew did not fully represent her reality. She encouraged three other girls to have their pictures taken, too.