Because I am half Egyptian, I have made various friends from Middle Eastern countries during my 19 years of life, but there are some outliers. One of these outliers is Haya Kaliounji, and I am proud to call her my friend!
Last April, I attended an Eid festival with music, food, games, and more. After walking around a bit, I ran into Kaliounji and her sister, working at a henna booth. It turns out that Kaliounji was giving people henna and planned to use the funds for her nonprofit organization, “Rise Again.” I thought her organization was for a wonderful cause and wanted to discover more about it. Here’s what I learned.
Kaliounji is a recent graduate of the University of Colorado Anschutz and is currently in doctoral residency. Kaliounji lived in Allepo, Syria, prior to the start Syrian Civil War. Her family owned a farm and a print shop, both of which were targeted during the war, forcing Kaliounji and her family to flee after living there for 14 years. The Kaliounji family first spent some time in Lebanon before moving to California. After graduating from high school, Kaliounji attended Pasadena City College and then the University of California, Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, not everyone could successfully escape the horrors of the civil war. So, Kaliounji wanted to find a way to give back to her community in Syria. She was also working on a Gold Award project, as a part of the Girl Scouts, so what better way to combine the two endeavors? This was when “Rise Again” was born. Kaliounji knew that there were a lot of amputees who lost limbs during the war. She put her focus first on prosthetic devices. Her attention then shifted to providing medicine for people who cannot afford it because the issue of getting prosthetics seemed less pressing. Eventually, “Rise Again” turned into a nonprofit organization.
“We helped a total of 48 people get prosthetic devices,” said Kaliounji. “And then, since we started doing the medication mission, we’ve helped at this point over 800 to 1,000 people.”
Here’s how it all works: first, she would host fundraisers, like the henna stand I mentioned earlier, or she would collect funds through her GoFundMe page. Then, she would transport all the funds to Syria. Her father would be between the United states and Syria often, meaning he would directly collaborate with pharmacies to donate the money. In turn, the pharmacy would give people their medicine with these funds. In other words, the money from “Rise Again” would pay for people’s medications. For all this hard work, Kaliounji’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. She was recognized on the news about “Rise Again.”
“At my community college, they did a feature on me. At UCLA, two of the journals, called UCLA Newsroom and The Daily Bruin. And they also wrote features on how I moved from Syria and the nonprofit, and then I was actually also interviewed on CNN International,” Kaliounji said.
After the downfall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria’s future changed as the rebel forces moved in. On one hand, it was a very stressful time for everyone, including Kaliounji. On the other hand, it would become much easier for “Rise Again” to distribute money for the cause because the Assad regime was very restrictive. Kaliounji’s GoFundMe was always at risk of being shut down because of political sanctions in Syria, and that was one of the biggest challenges with “Rise Again.”
“There was no direct transfer that we can do from bank to bank. We would have to wait for someone to go to Syria and send the money with, like cash with them, which was difficult,” Kaliounji noted.
Kaliounji’s story is the perfect example of building your strength from the ground up: when life makes you fall down, you get right back up! Thankfully, “Rise Again” continues to rise, and Kaliounji is nearly done with this project.
“I hope that it continues to grow in a way where the help that we’re providing is more permanent than just providing short-term cash to people so that they pay for their medication,” Kaliounji added.
She made it her life mission to continue to make a difference for Syrians, even when she is here physically in the United States. People say, “never forget where you came from,” and Kaliounji follows this advice to heart. In fact, she always wore this necklace with the name Allepo in Arabic. I never saw her once without it off.
“I’m hoping that one day I can contribute to the betterment of the healthcare in Syria and with my MD and training in medicine, hopefully you combine both and do some global health work there, and do some small changes in the healthcare and make it better,” said Kaliounji.