T There is no professional wrestler as progressive as Rami Sebe, otherwise known by his pseudonym, Sami Zayn. Sami Zayn is a WWE Superstar, born in Quebec of Syrian immigrants. Instead of going out in a stereotypical costume from the Middle East in order to cheer the crowd, he goes to the ring, a tribute to his love of ska music. He also embraces his Syrian heritage. Last year, Zayn raised more than $ 100,000 to help mobile clinics in his war-torn country. Currently, Zayn is involved in a campaign to raise $ 50,000 more for a program called Sami for Syria, for the benefit of SAMS, the Syrian American Medical Society. We talk here about his goals for this campaign and why he got involved.
Dave Zirin: Can you talk about this new fundraising campaign, Sami for Syria?
Sami Zayn: July 12 marked the beginning of the last fundraiser. to launch a mobile clinic in Syria, operating in the field to help people who were in truly rural areas or who had been displaced and who did not have access to health care. Essentially fund these mobile clinics, which would provide medical services and drugs and deliver them directly to people who otherwise would not have access to health care.
It's been a year, and I think the system is still working and we raised about $ 105,000 and we were able to provide 8,000 medical services, which is amazing. I am very proud of this and I am very pleased with the generosity of all the donors who made this possible.
But now we find ourselves in a somewhat new situation, due to the escalation of violence in Daraa, which was actually the starting point of our mobile clinic. That led somewhere in the neighborhood of 350,000 people who had to flee their homes. And many of them fled to the borders of Jordan and to the Golan Heights.
But these borders are now closed to them, so they could not even flee the country as refugees, so they were literally stranded in the desert without any protection, in many cases not even a tent, nothing. Just them in the elements and the desert. Which is just crazy. I can not even understand that, because I live in Florida and if I am out of the AC for 15 minutes, I start to get irritable, so that allows me to put things into perspective.
So, this latest campaign is called Sami Relief and it just started today, almost on the occasion of the first anniversary of the launch of the previous mobile clinic campaign. I want to talk about the current humanitarian crisis, the current situation, because I know that people can use it every time. The conflict in Syria has been going on for about eight years, so I understand how people are using it. You turn on the news and every day something new, not only in Syria, but even here in the United States, so it's very easy to use it, and I understand that. This fundraiser that we have just launched today is responding to something happening right now, in real time. The situation is very complicated with respect to politics, but it's honestly what I do not want to touch. This is not my goal. The essential here is a non-political, non-religious fund, you know, that will help essentially displaced civilians
