Natasha Bowler is a journalist and documentary filmmaker specialising in the Middle East, human rights and the refugee crisis. She has reported and made documentaries for publications including The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Reuters and more. Earlier this year, she spent several months volunteering with refugees in Lesbos, Greece, and reporting on the crisis. During this time, she met many Syrian people, including her partner on the project Muhammad, many of whom told her stories from the Syrian conflict that English-language media was not reporting. This is how and why she decided to set up SyriaWire.

SyriaWire is the first-ever, English-language news site covering the Syrian conflict by Syrian refugee journalists. Every SyriaWire reporter is both Syrian and anasylum seeker in Europe, having fled the civil war in Syria in order to be safe. Each journalist covers a key region in Syria, the region they themselves are from. By doing it this way, Syrian journalists that really understand the situation and have a network of sources on the ground, both professional and personal, can report objectively from the safety of European soil.

By joining the Div-A mentor scheme, we hope to receive backing and funding for Syriawire in order to make the project sustainable in the long-term.