Since October 2014 I have been living in Europe, primarily in a small community in south Portugal, having left Syria due to the continuous violent conflict there. In December and January, I visited Sweden, living outside of Uppsala, and started work on a project to create a community and organic farm for refugees. This would be a place where Syrian refugees can live and work together until the war in Syria ends and we can return home. Right now the project is slowly getting attention with the local government, and I am planning that it can begin to take shape in the next few months. I currently have a one year residence card that allows me to live in Europe.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

What I am looking for now is a place to stay for the first weeks and months of my time in Sweden upon my return on February 13th.

Interests

My engineering background focuses mostly on water supply and sewage. I graduated in 1991 from the Civil Engineering Institute in the city of Kharkov in the former Soviet Union. I now have many years of experience in the field of industrial wastewater treatment and recycling, as well as domestic wastewater reuse in agriculture. Using these practices I created and managed a big project of 50 hectares close to my home town of Yabroud, Syria. Before leaving my country, and during the war, I founded the first home-scale biogas production in Syria, as a way to meet the energy needs of my town. In the last months, I have lived in the community of Tamera in Portugal, working with the ecological team there to find a way forward for the millions of refugees from my home country.

• agriculture
• engineering

Countries I’ve Visited

Jordan, Sweden

Countries I’ve Lived In

Japan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Portugal, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates