On September 27th I’ll be participating in the Damascus Marathon, Syrias first mass-participation sporting event since the downfall of the Assad regime.

I will be raising money through Three Wishes to directly support mental health facilities in Northwestern Syria.

From the 3 trips I made back to Syria in past months, it has never been any clearer to me that we are a nation of profoundly traumatised people.

Mental healthcare and awareness is needed more than ever in my home country. In this transitional and turbulent period of rebuilding Syria, the psychiatric institutions are in dire need of public support. We have inherited a country that is infrastructurally and societally fractured. It will be difficult to rebuild a country and plan for the future when its people cannot move on from the traumas of the past. Likewise, there still lies a deep culturally rooted stigmatisation of illnesses of the brain and mind. I wish one day for us as Syrians to challenge this stigma and remove it from our society for good.