CAIRO — The original impetus behind Insan, an initiative launched in 2013, was to provide psychological treatment to Syrian children in Egypt suffering from the trauma of the civil war in their home country. In November, the team of Syrian university students currently involved in the program announced that it would now be open to other children who have sought refuge in Egypt, including from Sudan and Yemen.

Team member Abbi Mustafa, a Syrian national and sixth-year medical student at Ain Shams University, told Al-Monitor, “During the [Syrian] war, these children had no access to any psychological support.” The team therefore seeks to provide psychosocial assistance for psychological trauma stemming from fear, loss of friends and family members and seeing or experiencing violence.

Insan — Arabic for “human” — targets children aged 6-18. “They are the most vulnerable,” Mustafa said. “These asylum-seeking children are affected by the aftereffects of war, alienation, instability, physical and familial pressures. They are unable to express their psychological needs in the absence of parental understanding.”

Insan has so far engaged 3,000 Syrian children, with another 2,000 having been added to its program. “The team is currently focusing on displaced Sudanese and Yemeni children,” Mustafa said.