Frazer Hay in conversation with Lama Abboud, as part of 10 Stories for 10 Years.
On the evening of 8 February 2026, Lama Abboud was preparing for a milestone moment in Homs. In two weeks’ time, diplomats, religious leaders, academics and civic authorities would gather to mark the restoration of a theatre once silenced by war. The Greek and Cypriot ambassadors were expected. The mayor. The university president. Bishops from multiple churches. A city that had endured fracture, suspicion and loss would come together in one restored space.
For Lama, this was not simply the reopening of a building.
‘The theatre is a statement,’ she said. ‘A statement that life returns. That we adapt. That we collaborate. That we trust again.’
Trust, in Syria, is not an easy word. For Lama, it had to be rebuilt carefully, patiently, and often in silence.
But the story of that theatre began long before the Cultural Protection Fund, before Turathuna Foundation, before the war. It began in the houses of her childhood: houses full of laughter, music, cousins, food, stories and love.
Lama grew up in Homs, surrounded by extended family. Her memories of childhood are filled with movement between grandparents’ homes, summer visits from cousins in Germany, trips to Palmyra, days by the beach, swimming pools and mountains. Her family travelled together, sang together, ate together and argued together. It was a world of belonging.
At the centre of that world was her grandfather, a man she remembers as joyful, kind and wise. He solved problems gently, made people feel seen, and filled the family with songs, jokes and games.
‘When I am with my daughter,’ Lama said, ‘even when she was young, I kept teaching her the songs and the games that my grandfather used to teach us.’
Those songs continued. Her daughter learned them. Friends learned them. Younger members of the family learned them. Memory moved from one generation to another, not as a history lesson, but as play.
The houses mattered too. One grandmother’s home stood in the old city, an Arabic house with a courtyard and trees. Lama remembers its atmosphere vividly: the shade, the material, the feeling of family gathered around space. Later, when the decoration was changed, she cried. It felt, she said, as if someone had stolen part of her childhood.
That sense of place never left her.
Perhaps it is why she became an architect. Perhaps it is why old houses, black stone and courtyards would later mean so much. Perhaps it is why, even before she had the language of heritage, she already understood that buildings hold memory.
Her father shaped another part of her: pride in Syria. He taught her that Syria was home, that roots mattered, that leaving should never be the first dream. Her mother encouraged travel, discovery, music and resourcefulness. Lama played piano and guitar, sang national songs, raised the flag at school and lost marks once for singing during an exam.
She describes herself as rebellious, though perhaps leader is the better word. Even as a child, she defended others. If someone was treated unfairly, she stepped in.
‘They would say, “It’s not your problem. Why are you defending them?”’ she recalled. ‘And I would say, “He is innocent. He doesn’t have anyone to defend him.”’
Yet this open, expressive childhood existed within a culture of fear. Under the Assad regime, politics was dangerous. Her father warned his children repeatedly: ‘Walls have ears.’
They were raised to love Syria, but not to speak freely about power.
Then war came.
The Syrian revolution began on Lama’s birthday, 15 March. What followed was not one single rupture, but a long unravelling of ordinary life. Her father had already been imprisoned for nine months in 2009, an experience that left her crying into her pillow night after night. Then came gunfire, checkpoints, explosions, chemical exposure, fear for family, fear for her daughter, and the slow destruction of the places that held her memories.
One beloved aunt’s house, another centre of family life, was destroyed. Looted. Damaged. Ruined. Its objects vanished, its walls broken, its memories violated.
‘It felt as if someone had stolen our memories and our childhood.’ Lama said.
In Damascus, where she was studying for a Master’s in Cultural Heritage Restoration, danger followed daily life. She remembers taking a wrong road and being fired at by soldiers. She remembers smoke rising near her daughter Maria’s school and discovering that the children had been sent to the basement and told to sit in fear.
‘They are children,’ she said. ‘We will ruin their childhood.’
She remembers suspected chemical exposure, her pupils dilating unnaturally, tears streaming from her eyes, and then temporary blindness after receiving treatment. She remembers driving through roads marked by blood and bodies. She remembers a local vegetable seller, Abu Abdullah, killed by a bomb in his car just after delivering vegetables to her home.
For days afterwards, she wore black.
Through it all, Lama tried to protect Maria from becoming, as she put it, ‘a child of war.’ She sang. She cooked. She taught her daughter to be strong, independent and unbreakable. She absorbed as much fear as she could so that her child might feel less of it.
Eventually, the family travelled to the United States. For the first time in years, there was safety. Maria could move through a house without fear. A door closing did not have to mean danger. A dark room did not have to hold a thief or a soldier or a bomb.
But safety brought another kind of unease.
Maria began losing Arabic. She began answering in English. She began absorbing a different understanding of family, home and identity. Then one day, she described Syria as ‘garbage.’
For Lama, that sentence changed everything.
‘If my daughter is not proud of being Syrian,’ she said, ‘how will she be successful in the future?’
She had a choice. Stay in the United States, apply for asylum, and build a safer life far from war. Or return to Syria, where danger remained, but where her roots, her work and her sense of purpose still lived.
‘Even if the bombs hit my head,’ she said, ‘I’m going back to Syria.’
So she returned.
Back in Syria, Lama resumed her studies and began working with children and young people. She created the Heritage Guardian Club for teenagers aged 13 to 18, including Maria and her friends. The aim was simple and profound: to help them understand what Syria was, what Homs was, and why their cultural inheritance mattered.
They learned about Palmyra, Bosra, Damascus, old houses, temples, castles and everyday objects. Each child brought something from home, a mosaic box, a family object, a handmade item, and together they discussed its value: emotional, economic, national, artistic, personal.
Stories emerged. Pride returned.
Maria changed, too. The child who had once dismissed Syria began to speak of it differently. Later, in the Netherlands, when asked where she was from, she answered proudly: Syria.
That was what Lama wanted.
‘Even if they have wings and fly,’ she said, ‘they won’t forget where home is.’
For Lama, heritage was never about nostalgia. It was about survival, dignity and future identity. Even broken places could still carry colour. Even a damaged Syria was not an ugly Syria.
That conviction became the foundation of Turathuna.
In 2018, Lama attended ICCROM’s First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis programme. The training confirmed what she already knew instinctively: that heritage protection is not a luxury in crisis. It is a form of recovery.
There, in the Netherlands, she met Alex Bishop, then a grants manager for the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund. Lama told him plainly: ‘Help me. I want to invite life back to Homs.’
His advice stayed with her.
‘Create something solid.’
A structure. An organisation. Something that could be trusted, supported and sustained.
When Lama returned to Homs, she walked through the old city again. The devastation was overwhelming. She remembers the smell of death in the black stone. She cried. She raged. She asked why her family had raised her to love Syria so deeply if Syria could be broken so completely.
Then, the next morning, she made a decision.
Turathuna Foundation was born.
Starting a civil initiative in Assad-era Syria was dangerous. International partnerships could attract suspicion. Cultural work could be misread as political work. Foreign funding could be treated as espionage. Lama knew the risks.
When Turathuna was selected, alongside other organisations, to receive support through a programme funded by the Cultural Protection Fund, the opportunity was extraordinary.
It was also hazardous.
The partnership had to be quiet. Professional. Careful. No unnecessary publicity. No public declarations. No attention that might endanger local people.
When locals asked where support came from, Lama would say, ‘It’s from the church.’
When the church asked, she would say, ‘Private donors.’
For two years, the real source remained hidden. Only after a new bishop was appointed did she confide in someone outside her immediate family. The CPF connection remained quiet until the fall of the Assad regime in 2024.
Throughout that time, CPF stayed.
They did not disappear when circumstances became complicated. They met regularly. They listened. They adjusted. They understood the context and trusted Lama’s judgement. She remembers the bi-weekly and quarterly meetings, especially with Daniel Head, with unexpected warmth.
‘Meeting him was a comfort,’ she said. ‘And I loved when his beautiful dog appeared on the screen.’
Even in danger, there was humanity.
For Lama, this mattered deeply. The Cultural Protection Fund was not simply a donor. It became a careful partner: structured, fair, sensitive and humane. They helped with networks, knowledge, procurement, materials and strategy. They understood when things could not be said publicly. They supported without demanding visibility.
‘The CPF showed incredible restraint and humility in their quiet support,’ she said.
One of the most difficult moments came during the Facing Change conference in Amman. Lama had just presented Turathuna’s work when news from Syria turned catastrophic. The Assad regime was collapsing. Families were frightened. Rumours of ISIS infiltration spread. Homs felt at risk of chaos.
Lama stood in public while her city trembled.
‘I was terrified for my family. For my city. For everyone.’
The CPF team stepped closer. Stephanie Grant and her colleagues helped arrange flights, taxis and onward travel so Lama could reach her daughter in the Netherlands. They removed logistical obstacles calmly and quietly.
‘They never left my side,’ Lama said. ‘They looked after me.’
That, too, is cultural protection of a kind: not only care for buildings, but care for the people who risk themselves to protect them.
After the fall of Assad, Lama could finally speak openly.
‘Now I can shout about CPF,’ she laughed.
She is proud to name them. Proud to acknowledge their professionalism, trust and sensitivity. Proud that their support helped make the theatre’s restoration possible, not only financially, but structurally and ethically.
At the Amman conference, after Lama’s presentation, she remembers seeing Steve Stenning, founder of the Cultural Protection Fund, in the front row. His presence steadied her. After she spoke, he addressed the audience. Lama still remembers the force of his message: that the Fund existed because of people like her.
