Education and Capacity Building

Today is International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Many of the participants in Lamp Lifeboat Ladder have survived torture, violence and trauma. To celebrate the power and strength of survivors around the world,  we wanted to share some more excerpts from authors in the writing group, 'Tomorrow's Hope: Modern Creativity Group' about family and ancestors. Frasie I am in ...

Fati, a young Afghan-Iranian woman who is now is living in Toronto, said this: ‘I believe that women have changed the world, at least they have changed my world. I was drying up like a plant. They shined on my life like the sun and helped me to grow.’ Thege, a woman now living in Alberta writes this: THE WOMAN 👩 The woman is a being of the female gender. In previous times, she ...

Razan, a woman from Syria is now living in New York State wrote this piece: Challenge game with me: How can we be fair in our feelings towards life? This life taught me a lot, and actually it still does. Its lessons were so hard; not merciful, and…not easy. It didn’t have mercy on my weakness as a woman, or my loneliness as an immigrant and my tears as a loser. I don’t know, I ...

Many women survivors in our program are fighting for the rights of their fellow countrywomen and girls who continue to experience extreme repression and violence, simply because of their gender.  This violence is never far from survivors’ minds. Two women in our program have written beautiful pieces describing their devastation at the approach towards women and girls in their h ...

The amazing Abdo has been part of the Lamp Lifeboat Ladder family for more than 5 years. He resettled to Toronto in October 2021 with his parents and siblings. Since arriving he has started interviewing passersby in different parts of Toronto, asking them questions about the city and filming their responses, adding the clips to his YouTube channel 'Abdo Tube'.  He said it's a f ...

We wanted to mark this day by sharing some beautiful words from Fatemah J, a survivor in our program. She writes about her experience as someone who has been forced to leave the place she grew up in search of safety and how she copes with the pain of the changes in her life she's been forced to confront. Her words describe the lack of control that refugees have over their lives ...

Today is International Women’s Day. What better way to mark this day than by celebrating an incredible family in our Lamp Lifeboat Ladder project, in particular two inspiring, smart young women, both studying at university, whom I met during my recent trip to Jordan. Ahlam and Angham talked to me about their university studies and their hopes and dreams for the future. Ahlam an ...

As we enter the fall – in the northern hemisphere at least – we at Lamp Lifeboat Ladder have plenty to reflect upon following a packed summer schedule of legal work, accompaniment, creative thinking and strategic planning. During June, July and August, 20 members of our team from Jordan, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Greece and Egypt travelled to Athens to support ...

In the final blogpost from Razan, she tells us about going back to school, learning new teaching techniques and her dreams for the future. "I enjoyed going back to school to improve my English. I got to meet and speak to many people and we had lovely teachers. My husband and I learnt together for two hours each day. We took our school bags, water, sandwiches – it was fun every ...

LLL participant and teacher Razan explains her motivation to learn English and why it’s so crucial for people to learn the language of their new country. "We knew we would eventually be granted sanctuary in the USA, so I built up my English whilst we were in Spain where my youngest daughter received medical treatment. I spoke to the doctors in English so I could learn about her ...