for our latest newsletter!    

The Award The Ellie Maxwell Award was first given in 2019 to Mxogyny and Colours of Edinburgh as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of Ellie Maxwell founding Firefly International. It is sponsored by her family and friends through Edinburgh University. It aims to encourage and support an Edinburgh-based student or group...

for our latest newsletter!  

A huge thank you to Rufus for choosing firefly for his birthday fundraiser and for the donation he made to our partner projects in Bosnia, Syria, Turkey and Gaza.  

We are two months into the CATT (children’s accelerated trauma treatment) Gaza Pilot project and the mid-term report is complete and full of the successes already achieved:  20 children referred and assessed 10 children who have completed CATT treatment 30 care-givers reached through awareness sessions  Challenging PTSD symptoms have been reduced and recovery...

Edinburgh University kindly hosted the award ceremony for our two winners of the inaugural Ellie Maxwell Award, an award given by Ellie’s family to encourage students at Edinburgh developing organisations which promote social change. Sarah Smith welcomed everyone to the University and spoke of the importance of this award in...

An intrepid Firefly supporter, Ian Reed, has completed the Hellespont swim in Istanbul to support Firefly’s work for Syrian refugees and children affected by war. Thank you very much Ian!

Firefly, IMET2000 and ACT international are running a six-month pilot in Gaza treating children suffering from PTSD. ACT International trains counsellors in accelerated trauma therapy (CATT) and the two counsellors in Gaza – Mohammed El Sharef and Haitham Mohammed have been trained by ACT and are receiving ongoing training and...

Our Antakya centre ran a 10-month maths programme for Adolescent Syrian Refugees. They attended intensive workshops on Saturdays and Sundays throughout this period. These pupils attend Turkish schools and all their education has been in Turkish since they arrived here from Syria. Many have missed years of education due to...

This video shows Syrian young people at our centre working with Turkish engineering students on a robot making project.

Congratulations to Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) for their 20th anniversary. This wonderful film made by a current volunteer, Florian, shows the wonderful work which Svitac does every day to promote tolerance and give young people life-changing opportunities.   

Some images of the mesmerising light display kindly donated by Bruce Munro as part of the celebration of 20 years of Firefly International. The display was held in the Old College Quad from the 25th to the 29th of March.  British artist Bruce Munro is best known for immersive large-scale...

Diana McMicking and Maria Chambers visited the Firefly for Syrians centre in Antakya in February. The team there are working very hard to boost learning opportunities for Syrian refugees using a creative approach to maths and science activities. They have been very successful and the numbers of children using the...

Thank you to Jeremy Irons for kindly recording this short video message which was played at the Firefly Gala.