A new platform aims to reinstill trust in reporting.

By Segal Shahaf 

After Lena witnessed the difficulties Syrian activists had with sharing their stories, she

founded Sourceable, a platform that seeks to generate trust between witnesses of human rights abuses and journalists worldwide. 

Sourceable supports activists by making it easier to document human rights atrocities, and share them with the world. By simply recording the time, date, and location of where a photo is taken, the platform generates trust between activists and reporters in a time where misinformation challenges our ability to believe in visual content. 

From Syria to Arizona and back

Lena Arkawi was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, far from her parents’ hometown, Damascus. Despite their love for Syria, Lena’s family migrated to the U.S. to escape tyranny and find a better future for their children. Following her parents’ wishes, Lena attended Arizona State University for an undergraduate degree. But the connection to Syria was always present. 

“Syria is where my family is,” said Lena.

(Lena Arkawi)

In 2011, Lena visited her family in Syria. 

“It was the end of March, the last time I was there,” Lena remembers “It happened two hours away, a small protest that we did not think much of. That protest sparked one of the bloodiest civil conflicts of our time. I was there for two weeks, and it was terrifying. We couldn’t leave the house. It was in the air, and no one wanted to talk about it. Once hectic streets were empty and quiet. It was eerie.”

As the war progressed, Lena knew she had to help. She moved to Qatar and worked with a public relations company to supply information to the United Nations about the conflict. 

“I was covering it, trying to help, pushing to find humanitarian aid,”  Lena says. 

And then, in 2015, she encountered the White Helmets, a Syrian volunteer group specializing in search and rescue missions, aiding victims trapped under rubble in Syria’s embattled cities. 

“They moved me,” Lena says.  “They were heroes; there is no other way to put it.” 

While researching the group, Lena discovered a critical need for an all-woman ambulance, as male rescuers often could not treat female victims due to religious concerns. She made it her mission to raise the necessary $15,000. 

“I launched a campaign,” Lena says. “I would climb Mount Kilimanjaro and raise the flag of my supporters, but they must finance the ambulance.” 

In late 2015, Lena fulfilled her promise. She climbed Kilimanjaro, and the ambulance was purchased and sent to Aleppo. 

“It was amazing to think about all the people it helped,” she says. 

Lena refers to the ambulance in the past tense because 18 months later, an aerial attack destroyed it. 

(Lena’s ambulance in better days, and after the attack) 

Father of Roses 

Lena was undeterred; her passion led her across the globe from Dubai to the U.S. through Turkey. She worked for the White Helmets’ central office in Istanbul, helping build their public relations branch. As part of her work, Lena interviewed Abu Ward, “Father of Roses,” a discussion that changed her life.

Abu Ward was given his epithet for his love of roses. Before the war, he was a firefighter working for the Syrian government. Abu Ward lost his job after helping to put out a fire at a dissident’s house in his hometown of Daraa. Soon after, he began receiving threats from government officials. Eventually, the threats became too much to bear. 

“He fled, but he still wanted to help his people, so he joined the White Helmets,” Lena says. 

When security forces caught him trying to cross a checkpoint, they imprisoned and tortured him. 

“They hung him from his hands,” Lena says. “They wouldn’t let him sleep, eat, drink, or use the restroom. That was his punishment for trying to help his people.” 

After three weeks of torture, he was free. Before his bruises could heal, Abu Ward returned to the White Helmets.

As hardened as Lena was after years of volunteering for the Syrian cause, Abu Ward’s story distressed Lena. It stood as a testament to the bravery of the humanitarian aid workers. And it was her wake-up call to how fortunate she was. 

“I was privileged to be born in America,” Lena says. “In Syria, bombs are raining down on people, but they are still helping one another. The humanity of it, the inhumanity of war, was almost too much.”

Finding a solution

Lena knew she could do more, but she lacked the necessary tools. 

“I needed to find a place that could combine my work with NGOs, government, and entrepreneurship,” Lena says.“SIPA was the perfect match.” 

Lena did not forget her drive and was adamant about finding a way to help Syrians. She joined a reporters/Syrians WhatsApp group called “Aleppo Media Siege Center” and discovered a problem she knew she could solve. 

“Syrian civilians would upload their pictures and stories to the group, hoping a reporter would publish them,” Lena says.“But due to verification problems, their stories remained unheard.”

Frustrated by the lack of trust, Lena established Sourceable, an application that uses blockchain technology to promote confidence in worldwide ground-level reporting. Activists can use the application to take photos, videos, and audio recordings. Sourceable will automatically record the origins of the media file (i.e., time, date, location, and metadata) in a blockchain-style ledger. This authentication allows future file users to verify that it has not been tampered with or changed. Sourceable publishes the verified files on its database, where journalists and other professionals can access and use them. Journalists can also message activists who publish the images, closing the gaps between the two groups. That is how Lena gives voice to the voiceless. 

“With all the misinformation and disinformation, the media has lost trust,” Lena says. “I want to bring it back. I want Sourceable to be a tool for people on the ground to reveal the truth.”

While Sourceable is still under development, it had its first successful pilot this summer in Syria. 

“One of our first citizen journalists, Faid, lost most of his eyesight,” Lena says.“He uses his camera as his eyes, and through it, he shows the world what he witnesses.” 

As Lena imagines the future of Syria and the world, she thinks of what Abu Ward told her in that fateful interview; he said, “I want to see Syria covered with roses from ocean to ocean.” Now that would be quite a sight.