In 2019, Noha Moustafa left her job at a corporate law firm to work as a full-time volunteer attorney for refugees with the International Refugee Assistance Project in Amman, Jordan (IRAP). There, she interviewed countless women who were imprisoned, tortured, and forcibly displaced from their homes, for their asylum matters to advocate for their resettlement to another country.

She interviewed one Syrian mother in particular, who had stoically recounted her time in one of the prison facilities. Yet the only tears this mother shed were for her son, who refused to go to school. She could not afford a backpack for her son and put his belongings into a plastic grocery bag. At school, the bag ripped, the pens and papers fell out and the rest of the students mocked him for his socioeconomic status.  The schools often had minimal resourcing and were unable to assist. 

It was through these interviews that Noha discovered that these young children, victims of genocide and warfare, could not afford the simplest of school supplies. Noha realized that one of the greatest hurdles many of these families faced was the cost-barrier to education. And she set out to tackle this problem. No mother should have to worry about her child attending school just because they could not afford a backpack or uniform. This is the problem READ aims to address.