Student Mohammed al-Hamo, who learned to cut hair to earn money in his spare time, never imagined he would put his skills to use in a tent camp for Turkey-Syria earthquake survivors.
Following the devastation caused by the February 6 earthquakes that destroyed swaths of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, 18-year-old Hamo is offering open-air haircuts to his family and those displaced by the disaster.
“If anyone comes he will for sure give them a haircut,” said his father Khaled with a proud smile as he waited for his turn in the barber’s chair.
Hamo first gave his brother a fade, carefully using a cut-throat razor to sculpt 19-year-old Sobhi’s hairline.
Khaled is given a haircut by his 18-year-old son Mohammed al-Hamo [Sameer al-Doumy/AFP]
“I had not managed to recover my equipment until now,” said Hamo who had successfully retrieved electric clippers, combs, scissors and shampoo from the wreckage of his destroyed home.
While the family still has relatives missing following the earthquake that killed more than 46,000 people, their immediate family escaped unhurt.
Khaled said that, beyond free haircuts, his two eldest sons had been volunteering to help others in the camp in a park in the southeastern Turkish city of Antakya.
“Our moral code tells us to help people, so my sons do this … we don’t wait for someone to tell us,” said Khaled, of the pair who had helped clean the camp and worked with an aid agency.
Millions across the region have been made homeless by the earthquake, with many forced into tented camps with limited sanitation or access to electricity and healthcare.
As Hamo dusted down his brother and prepared to give his father a haircut and shave, his mother swept up hair nearby.
The earthquakes caused widespread destruction in southern Turkey and northern Syria and killed more than 46,000 people [Sameer al-Doumy/AFP]
“It feels good to do good things to help others. I never imagined I’d do this when I learned to cut hair as I just did it for money to help the family,” he said.
He then transformed his father’s appearance, threading his eyebrows, tidying up his already short hair and leaving him clean-shaven.
“Even in these difficult conditions, we keep moving,” Khaled said, his family’s clothes hanging to dry on a washing line behind him.
Hamo said he was preparing to go to university soon but would transfer to an institution in the Turkish capital Ankara because of damage done to universities in the earthquake-hit region.
Eighteen-year-old Syrian Hamo (L) cuts the hair of his 19-year-old brother Sobhi (R) in front of their tent at a makeshift camp in the city of Antakya [Sameer al-Doumy/AFP]
The family moved to Antakya in 2014 from Aleppo in Syria, fleeing their country’s brutal civil war for Turkey like nearly four million of their compatriots.
“I started cleaning in a barber shop and then learned to cut hair from there,” he said as children played with a ball nearby and tea brewed on a stove outside their tent. “I prefer using scissors rather than electric shavers, it shows how skilled a hairdresser is.”
Hamo, 18, is offering open-air haircuts to his family and others displaced by the disaster.
ENB Top News
ENB
Energy Dashboard
ENB Podcast
ENB Substack
