AUC Alumni Fund for Syrian Refugees Surpasses $5 million in 11th Year

CAIRO — A nonprofit founded by two American University in Cairo alumni has raised more than $5 million for Syrian refugees in Jordan, its founders said, as the organization marked 11 years of operation this March.

Lexi Shereshewsky and Demetri Blaisdell, who met as AUC study abroad students in 2008 and later married, launched what was then called The Syria Fund in 2013, formally registering it as a U.S. nonprofit in 2015. In 2020, they renamed it The Azraq Fund. The organization focuses its work on South Azraq, a town in northern Jordan.

The fund currently supports approximately 150 families and more than 350 students, according to its 2024 annual report, operating through a close partnership with Nachmyat Eastern Badia Cooperative, an Azraq-based charity.

The two founders said their time living in the region drove them to act. Shereshewsky studied in Cairo and lived in Damascus, where she witnessed the early days of the Arab Spring and the escalating crisis in Syria.

“By 2012, things were really bad, and many of my friends in Syria were affected,” she said.

Blaisdell said the experience left a lasting sense of obligation. “We felt like we owed a debt of gratitude to a country that had been so generous to us.”

What began as a modest goal of raising $25,000 quickly expanded. The fund ultimately raised $75,000 in its first four months. Over the following decade, as displacement became prolonged, the organization shifted from emergency relief toward long-term programming. 

Today, education accounts for roughly 80 percent of expenses, with emergency aid and administration each representing 10 percent.

“We came when people were arriving with nothing,” Shereshewsky said. “Over time the focus became how to keep students in school and help them build opportunities for the future.”

The UN estimates there are roughly 397,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, nearly half of them children. Syrian refugee students face significant financial pressures that often force them to leave school and enter the workforce to support their families. 

Ebtessam, a 21-year-old Syrian university student now in her third year, said the fund’s programs helped her continue her education after fleeing to Jordan.

“When we first arrived in Jordan, we were out of school for about a year because we kept moving from place to place,” she said. “The center helped us make up for what we missed and supported us to continue our education.”

She said a scholarship made university possible. “Without the Azraq Fund, we would not have been able to go to university.” 

The organization said it has also created 23 jobs in Azraq, many of them for young Jordanian women in an area where unemployment is high. Most positions are teaching, administrative and support roles within the center.

The AUC Alumni Office, which first connected with the fund in 2017, said it is working to rebuild and expand that relationship.

Chief Alumni Engagement Officer Raymonda Raif said the office aims to highlight alumni achievements worldwide and create opportunities for collaboration.

With the organization having crossed into its second decade, its founders say they are focused on long-term sustainability amid declining humanitarian funding and a slowly changing situation on the ground in Syria.

Hiba Shbib is an integrated marketing communication junior, who wrote this article for the Media Writing class, taught by adjunct faculty member Adam Makary.

Photos courtesy of Lexi Shereshewsky.