‘You always need to have a plan’
Syrian engineer Fares al Hasan swapped Aleppo for the Netherlands, where he works as a researcher at TU Delft and as a GIS specialist at Utrecht University. Getting here was not easy. “There needs to be room for resilience.”
Fares Al Hasan had a good job as an agricultural engineer in the department of Soil Science and Land Reclamation at the University of Aleppo. But everything changed when the civil war broke out in Syria in March 2011. He and his family moved in with his parents in Al-Bab, a village outside Aleppo. His daily commute by motorcycle and on foot to West Aleppo became increasingly dangerous. There were snipers everywhere. “When I heard a bullet fly past my ear one day, I decided to stop going to work.” He lost his job.
Ten years on, he is now doing research for TU Delft into the unprecedented drought of summer 2018. How did he manage that?
Just never give up, says Al Hasan. In Al-Bab, he came up with a new plan: create a life for himself as a scientist in Europe. He searched for scholarships and was welcomed in Wageningen, on the Master’s programme in International Land and Water Management. In the first year, Al Hasan struggled to concentrate on his studies. There was little room in his head to think about academic work. All he thought about was war. “My family had stayed behind in Syria. I was constantly worried about their safety.” After a year, he managed to bring his then wife and daughters to the Netherlands.
Now he understands it: “There is not always room for resilience.” But he still never gave up. He carried on studying and carried on with his life. “I had no other choice.” His Master’s completed, he applied for Hestia, an NWO (Dutch Research Council) grant that enables refugee scientists to continue their careers in the Netherlands. Initially, he worked only for TU Delft, but Utrecht University soon followed in late 2019. “I heard that UU was looking for someone. I couldn’t let that opportunity pass me by.” His TU Delft research is being funded by Hestia until October 2021.
And then? He already has a plan, although he believes that coronavirus has reduced his opportunities. “I want to publish soon. After that, I’ll focus totally on applying for a PhD position.” Although he does not intend to leave the Netherlands for now – “My family and I have so much to keep us here” – he still has dreams of building a new Syria. “Eventually, things will calm down and people like me will return. Then, the first thing we need to do is build a new education system. A country is nothing without good education.”