As Najlaa struggled to care for her two children and her husband in Kilis, she watched other Syrian women line up each day for bread and nappies. Seeing them forced to beg for the basic things they needed to live sparked an idea. The only way to rebuild the community she had lost in Syria was to help women like her get back on their feet. That’s how the Honourable Women's Centre was born.

Through job-training workshops, college preparatory classes, and lessons for children, Najlaa has begun to rebuild Syria in Turkey. On a recent day at the centre, women in hijabs carefully pulled needles through cloth, making the Syrian revolution’s equivalent of Barbie dolls.

“We called her Hajier, first martyr of the revolution,” Najlaa said as she held a doll with a kind face and golden-brown braids made of string.

Over the past two years, her women’s empowerment centre has grown to 18 employees who volunteer teaching English, sewing, and hairdressing. And the centre's impact has already been felt. Twenty seamstresses found jobs immediately after graduating from the centre’s program, she said.

The achievements of these women are now the only thing that brings her joy, Najlaa said. They also give her hope that someday they will be able to return to a peaceful Syria.

“The war will end. Nothing lasts, the war will end, and it will then be clear to women that the more work they put in, the more they will harvest.”

Najlaa’s own harvest surrounds her — women who now have the skills they need to remake their lives far from home. In the courtyard of the Honourable Women's Centre, a garden grows, and each plant has a name.

"When I started this project, I asked every woman to bring a tiny seed or plant, and plant it in a pot. They asked me, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘So when you decide to leave us one day, you have a root here,” Najlaa said and smiled.

Filmmaker Tarek Turkey contributed reporting from Kilis, Turkey. This story draws on interviews conducted in person in Turkey and on the phone from New York.