A recent morning, a group of refugees, mostly men and women from Sudan and Syria, filled the waiting room of a centre run by the Rouh Initiative in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in northern Egypt.

By midday, around 60 patients with various medical needs have been seen. It is another busy day for 31-year-old Sudanese refugee Nada Fadol, who has been running this multi-purpose centre since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023 and the influx of refugees across the border into Egypt.

Nada and her friends have turned a three-room apartment into a one-stop shop for refugees and asylum seekers. The Egyptian Red Crescent’s medical convoy visits the Rouh Initiative twice a month to provide free health services and medical check-ups.

“Rouh means soul in Arabic, because we are all one soul regardless of [our origin], whether we are Syrian, Sudanese or Egyptian”, said Nada

She knows firsthand what it means to be displaced, having arrived in Alexandria in late 2015, alone and determined to rebuild her life.

Adapting to life in a new country was difficult. Without a job, and unable to continue her studies, she got tired of sitting idly at home. Instead, she decided to use her skills to tutor refugee children, mainly from Syria, living in her neighbourhood.

“They used to ask me: ‘How do I solve this problem?’, ‘how do I read this?’, and ‘how do I do that?’ So, I decided to bring them all together and give them lessons at home.”

She soon built a strong reputation in the community, which meant more people sought her help. She decided to team up with other young refugees to start the Rouh Initiative as a means of mobilizing more support for refugees.

Nada says the ethos of giving back and caring for others is deeply rooted in Sudanese culture and was instilled in her by her parents from a young age. “We were raised to never bring one sandwich to school; we would always carry two in case someone didn’t have food,” she said. “We did this because we knew how difficult it was for someone to say ‘I have no food’. So that no person would feel like they were different from us, we would cut our sandwiches into pieces and eat together in a group.”

When hundreds of thousands of fellow Sudanese refugees fleeing violence began arriving in Egypt, Nada initially engaged other young people from the refugee and host communities in Alexandria to work with her to help families stranded in the southern border town of Aswan.

Two of her friends travelled to Aswan to assess the situation and establish a connection with local youth in the city, and upon returning to Alexandria the group immediately started fundraising.

“We raised funds from the people here [in Alexandria], then we sent it to our friends in Aswan to buy juice, water, and meals and deliver it to people arriving at the border,” she said.

As first responders on the ground, Nada and her friends managed to assist hundreds of new arrivals. In addition to providing them with hot meals and cash assistance, they connected the most vulnerable, including children and the sick and elderly, to local residents who provided them with temporary housing.

A few days before the civil war started, her mother and two siblings arrived in Egypt for medical reasons.  The rest of her family members were caught up in the conflict and fled in different directions.

Desperate to find them, she created a group chat on Facebook Messenger to connect with other people looking for their loved ones. She found her elder sister through the group who traced their father and the rest of the family. While some of her siblings have reunited with her and her mother in Egypt, the rest of the family remains in Sudan.

The group chat attracted hundreds of other people who continue to use it to track their families who are still trapped in the country.

As the Sudan war stretches into a second year with no end in sight, an estimated 500,000 Sudanese refugees have so far been registered in Egypt by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Such a large and rapid influx can overwhelm the resources of aid agencies, making initiatives such as Rouh vital in providing critical community-level assistance and psychosocial support to those forced to flee.

Most of the activities are run by young refugee volunteers like 24-year-old Khalida Abas, whom Nada supported when she recently arrived in the city. “I am grateful to Nada, she welcomed me to this country,” she said. “I now train young women on how to make canvas bags twice a week,” she said. The last activity of the day is a cultural ‘get-together’. More people arrive, including Egyptians, Syrians and Sudanese refugees, carrying fruit and homemade traditional food.

The aroma of freshly roasted coffee swirls through the air along with the sounds of Sudanese songs playing on a portable speaker. Older adults sit at the back of the room near the window while young people, led by Nada and Khalida – each wearing a strikingly colourful Sudanese garment called a thawb – take turns dancing together in the middle.

“Everyone looks forward to this,” Nada said. “We come together once every two weeks to celebrate, dance, eat together, and play songs about home, peace, and love.”

Last year, in recognition of her selfless work and dedication to helping her fellow refugees, Nada was awarded the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for the Middle East and North Africa. (Photo: Nada Fadol (R) with her friend at Rouh Initiative in Alexandria, Egypt – © UNHCR/Christina Rizk)

Moulid Hujale