I am Samia Soud Al-Balouss from the Azraq district, a community activist. As a president of the Azraq Women’s Cooperative Society, I work hard to make a real change in the lives of women in my community. As part of my belief in people, especially those who are in need, I volunteered to train some Syrian women on how to create a small business to enable them to secure their daily means of living. As human beings, we should be there for each other, I believe!

One of the issues that were disturbing me in Al-Azraq district is the lack of a maternity hospital or specialized health center in the region. I still remember the stories of women who lost their fetus on the road while trying to reach the nearest maternity center. I still see the fear in the eyes of pregnant women to have their delivery at night, while they do not have private cars. The fear that they and their fetus will be hurt on the long road from their homes to the nearest maternity center. This was also a major risk to their psychological wellbeing. This fear was spreading to my heart, and I felt responsible to do something about that. Therefore, I decided to take initiative to solve this issue!

I, with women leaders from the region, decided to implement a community initiative to solve this issue. Through the great support of ANHRE and Hivos, we started a campaign to organize the community and mobilize their support to the women's demand to establish a maternity center in Azraq.

We wanted to help them reinforce their right to have appropriate health care, especially for the pregnant women and their babies. To protect their right to life; not to make them vulnerable, due to the absence of a maternity center.

In the beginning, we collected information on the number of births in the region in general and the number of births occurring on the road before arriving at the nearest hospital in the governorate, as well as the number of deaths at birth of the mother or child due to arriving late at the hospital. We also showed the high number of disabilities that may occur to the mother or child because of that. We wanted to base our demands on knowledge and figures. Following that, we communicated with the people of the region, and signed a petition by 280 people. We also conducted a number of home visits and several awareness sessions to communicate with the women of the district, and mobilize their efforts to support the campaign. We also made networking with some officials and decision-makers, such as the deputy judiciary, members of decentralization, members of the municipal council and the mayor, until we reached the minister of health who promised us to allocate a budget for the establishment of a hospital that includes a maternity center. We are still following up on the matter, until we receive a written pledge to this promise.

During this journey of advocacy, lobbying, community mobilization, and communication with officials, we as a team learned a lot as follow:

First: Our legal conception changed; we realized that we are demanding a legitimate right and not a favor from any official, so the language that we used changed. Our team worked with passion and great cooperation; we became a role model for our community.

Second, our initiative contributed to breaking the culture of shame about mixing genders. Our team included young men and women from different places in Azraq; they worked together with the same team spirit, united by respect, appreciation, and one goal.

Third: On the personal level, this initiative has provided me with core leadership skills, such as prioritizing, knowing how to start and where to start implementing any idea. I have the ability to lead a team to achieve a common goal. I also became more determinant to do what is useful to my community.

Today, after a year of hard work, we received a decision for budget allocation for the establishment of a maternity center in Azraq, as authorities took 100 dunums of land from the government for this purpose. And we will continue to push forward our demands and be the voice of the people, until we see this dream become a reality.

"You right will not be lost, if you keep claiming for it"