Experiences have grown apart
War, displacement, and different legal and social realities have separated lives, paths, and knowledge.
About Us
Connection, acceptance of difference and development: our starting point for a more cohesive society
We connect Syrians within Syria and abroad through networks and projects so they can communicate, think, experiment and cooperate together towards a more cohesive society that embraces difference.
Who we are
Mubadara is an independent social initiative developing spaces where people connected to Syria can meet across different experiences, build trust, and explore shared forms of knowledge and action.
Our story
Our story began with a question simple in wording but profound in what it opens up: what happens to a society whose people have grown apart for many years, with experiences spread across different cities, countries and memories?
Years of conflict, authoritarianism and displacement separated Syrian experiences and narrowed the spaces where people could meet freely and build trust. Many efforts had to begin without relationships that had been given time to mature.
Mubadara begins with encounter: bringing Syrians in Syria and the diaspora together to exchange experiences, engage in dialogue and discover possibilities for cooperation. We believe that ideas need relationships that sustain them, and that more firmly rooted projects grow from mutual knowledge, trust and experimentation shaped by society’s needs.
What is our question, and in what context?
Syrians face a wide range of challenges today: weak institutions, fewer opportunities for public participation, economic insecurity, difficulty accessing resources, and fragmented initiatives. These challenges are real and consequential. At a deeper level, however, they point to an earlier problem concerning the social sphere itself. Over recent decades, especially during war, migration, displacement and polarisation, Syrian social relationships have faced immense pressures. These have affected people’s ability to build trust, exchange experience, discover shared interests and work in lasting spaces beyond temporary responses to emergencies.
Explore the full context: Context and question
Why Mubadara?
A shared future needs renewed connections
Mubadara does not begin from a lack of capacity. It begins from the need for spaces where experience, knowledge, and potential can meet and accumulate.
Spaces for encounter have weakened
Opportunities for sustained exchange, trust, and cooperation have become fewer and more fragmented.
Knowledge and capacity already exist
People carry diverse experience and skills that can become stronger when they meet and accumulate.
Context and question
Syrians today face a wide range of challenges: weak institutions, fewer opportunities for public participation, economic fragility, difficult access to resources, and fragmented initiatives. These challenges are real and consequential, but they also point to a deeper issue in the social sphere itself. Over past decades — especially through war, migration, displacement, and polarisation — Syrian social relations have faced immense pressure. This has affected people’s ability to build trust, exchange experience, discover shared interests, and work in lasting spaces that go beyond temporary responses to emergencies.
Syrian youth now live across different contexts and experiences shaped by geography as well as legal, economic, and social conditions. Knowledge and emotional distances have grown between these contexts, leaving much accumulated Syrian experience disconnected.
This rupture does not only exist between Syria and the diaspora; it also runs within each space. Opportunities for open encounter have declined, environments for deep discussion and long-term cooperation have weakened, and many initiatives repeatedly start from zero because the social relationships that could sustain and develop them are missing.
The question guiding our work
How can we contribute to rebuilding a social sphere that enables society to develop its institutions, projects, and forms of cooperation in a more stable and effective way?
Our vision · Our mission
Our vision
A Syrian youth social sphere where knowledge, trust and shared action support projects, partnerships and institutions rooted in society’s needs.
Our mission
Develop spaces for meaningful encounter, serious dialogue and partnership experiments, helping Syrians rebuild the conditions for lasting cooperation.
- Knowledge
- Trust
- Shared action
Our principles
Mubadara’s principles define how we understand social action and how we seek to build relationships within the initiative and with its wider environment. They bring together principles for our conceptual and methodological approach and principles for responsible organisational and community practice.
Principles guiding our approach
Coming together first
People’s ability to cooperate, organise, and create projects and institutions first depends on a social sphere that can hold and sustain these forms. We therefore begin with relationships, trust, and shared knowledge as the foundations of stable collective action.
Principles for responsible practice
Our objectives
Mubadara seeks to contribute to the following objectives:
Connection and mutual trust
Bridges, safe spaces, and shared experiences can help people understand difference and rediscover common ground.
Knowledge and dialogue
Documentation, reflection, and serious discussion can turn lived experience into shared social knowledge.
Cooperation and partnerships
Small experiments and complementary partnerships can reveal which forms of cooperation deserve to continue.
Agency and a plural future
People can identify shared priorities and develop their own open, diverse forms of action and organisation.