Name: Syrian Civil Defense Head Raed Saleh Gives a Toast at the 2017 TIME 100 Gala
Uploaded: 2017-04-26
Duration: 10 min 59 s
Description: Syrian Civil Defense Head Raed Saleh gives a toast at the 2017 TIME 100 Gala.

[ FOREIGN ] Good evening everyone, peace be upon you. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] Never in my life did I expect to be sitting here, named as one of the most influential people in the world. As I was just a simple man from the west of Syria in a town called [ UNKNOWN ], who is a merchant of electronics. [ FOREIGN ] But after the uprising in Syria began, I became instead a refugee. And I started working and managing a refugee camp for displaced people. [ FOREIGN ] In the middle of 2013 there was a moment that changed my life. I learned something that changed my life forever. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ]. I was in a training about search and rescue to specifically searching for civilians who were under the rubble. And the trainer who gave me that class, he probably didn't know it at the time, but through that. Class he changed my life forever. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] When we reached the training center, there were 25 men and four women, and we entered the training center. He took us in pairs into a dark room in which all of the tables and chairs were thrown upside down in a dark room. [ FOREIGN ] And he would lead us in in pairs and it was our job to see what we could find underneath all of these flipped tables and chairs. [ FOREIGN ] By the time we left the room, two minutes later, We felt like it was just a miracle just not flip over ourselves and fall on the ground trying to search through the tables. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And after we left the room, he turned on the lights and when we looked we were in a state of shock because we realized that under the tables and chairs there were people laying on the ground and we just hadn't noticed them. And it made us really think about what we're not aware of. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And that moment was a turning point in all of our lives. At that moment, we understood the difference between life and death. The difference between blind and being able to see. And we took that as a responsibility at that time to go back and try people as much as we could. [ FOREIGN ] Or we had another choice, which was To ignore this training and just go back to what we were doing before, running the refugee camps or being a refugee in another country. [ INAUDIBLE ] [ FOREIGN ] But, we decided instead, to take on the responsibility, to take on the challenge head on And to be the ones who went back inside and tried to rescue those who needed our help. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And so the 25 of us decided to go back and start doing this work. In the moment that really changed their lives the most defining moment for us, after we started this organization was a few years ago in the city of Aleppo there was a Child that was in his home in the three storey home fell on top of this child .>> [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And after 16 hours of continuous digging and trying to find this child we were able to pull out a ten day old baby from underneath this rubble, he was still and that moment is the moment we decided he was a miracle and that moment gave us the inspiration to continue with all this work. [ APPLAUSE ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And I'm here today not because I did all of this work myself, but because I'm just one of 3, 300 volunteers Whose job it is to find life from underneath death. This group of 3, 300 volunteers to date, has rescued the lives of over 90, 000 Syrian civilians. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] And for us the greatest accomplishment wasn't just saving the 90, 000 lives, but being a flame of hope for all the Syrian people who are suffering so much destruction and so many atrocities. And for them, we're happy to be that hope. But we are disappointed, and we're a hope in the face of this disappointing landscape where politicians and world leaders have failed and abandon the Syrian people through all of their suffering. [ FOREIGN ] [ FOREIGN ] Thank you. And I hope next year instead of me being here that it would someone who is able to bring peace not only to Syria but to every place in the world. That has conflicts, thank you. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Syrian Civil Defense Head Raed Saleh Gives a Toast at the 2017 TIME 100 Gala

Syrian Civil Defense Head Raed Saleh gives a toast at the 2017 TIME 100 Gala.