Um Sameh, from east Damascus, has led a tireless campaign to fight the rampant starvation gripping her besieged city. In the kitchen of an unassuming farmhouse, she and a small group of volunteers cook meals daily in a collection of enormous pots and then risk their lives to deliver food under shelling to hundreds of civilians trapped inside homes across Ghouta. Their organization, One Hand, is a call for compassion toward people of all faiths and backgrounds.
Um Sameh cuts a solitary figure, her small Suzuki weaving through the haze of shattered streets on her daily food runs in Ghouta, on the southeastern edge of Damascus. The relief provided by Um Sameh's daily deliveries is rare mercy for a civilian population pinned down in their shelters amid relentless bombardment and possible suffocation from the Syrian regime’s use of banned chemical weapons.
