Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) Winnipeg is asking for sweater donations to send all the way to Syrian refugees who reside in the ever-expanding Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

Zaatari first opened on July 28, 2012 and was originally designed for 17,000 people, according to Tom Brook, CLWR Community Relations Director, who visited the camp last December. As of October 8 this year, the camp is at a population of 120,785 persons of concern – making it the fourth largest city in Jordan. This scale of expansion has been possible due to the camp’s location in the desert.

The CLWR is asking for new or gently-used sweaters because the winter can get quite cool in Jordan, sometimes reaching freezing temperatures in January, with rain and the occasional snowfall.

The Zaatari camp is run by the United Nations, which also provides tenting and food, but it relies on other organizations such as CLWR to help with many aspects.

The CLWR sweater drive is just part of what they do.

“In our case our responsibility is for adult mental health and children’s psycho-social activities because of how traumatized many of them are, and we’re also responsible for health and education for 15,000 of the refugees at the camp,” Brook says.

More than 100,000 people have died in the civil war in Syria to date, with 2.1 million refugees having been displaced from their homes.

As of late, things seem to be moving in a positive direction as Assad is complying with the UN’s dismantling of its roughly 1,000 ton arsenal of chemical weapons. During the next eight months, 100 specialists from the UN – along with an organization that helps to enforce the global ban on chemical weapons – are being sent to carry out the task.

For refugees however, there is no telling when it will be safe to move home. Assad is still dismissing negotiations with rebels and violence continues. The UN estimates another 2 million refugees will join the current 2.1 million in 2014. This means refugee camps will continue to grow.

Patrick Stewart, CLWR We Care program coordinator clarifies. “When peace is established that doesn’t mean the people will be leaving or heading home right away because often there isn’t a home to return to or they are scared. Even if peace was declared tomorrow, this camp could continue years on into the future.”

Many of these refugees are lower-class working people, as the middle class have been able to afford to move into other cities. There are also many children, with 55.6% of the camp’s population currently under the age of 18.

 “Life in the camp itself is very difficult, not just physically developing but psychologically taxing as well,” says Stewart.

The current goal of CLWR is to get a minimum of 10,000 sweaters nationwide which will go to the sub-camp of 15,000 refugees that the CLWR is helping to look after.

Any extra sweaters are going to be donated to homeless shelters in Winnipeg.

Published in Volume 68, Number 7 of The Uniter (October 16, 2013)