Exhibition of photographs and testimonials by Iraqi, Afghani, Sudanese, Somalian, Colombian and Burmese refugee will start July 28 to September 30th in the United Nations Building in New York. The intimate exhibition created by National Geographic provides us with intimate portraits of families and community torn by civil wars, ethnic conflicts and poverty.
(PRWEB) July 22, 2004 -- We moved to America when I was 1 year old because there was a war. My dad didnt want us to get killed so we moved to America. Sometimes my mom and dad go to the bank and send money to my grandma and grandpa in Africa. I know this lady here in America that sends money to her family in Laos like we do." - Nyakoach Lam, 12, Sudanese AjA Project student in San Diego
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Out of an estimated 20 million refugees, displaced persons and other vulnerable groups around the world today, 50 per cent are children." The AjA Project, a San Diego-based non-profit organization dedicated to providing innovative media arts and photography-based educational programs for refugee youth, will be featuring its students artwork at the United Nations General Assembly Building (NE Corner, Visitors Lobby) from July 28 – September 30, 2004. This traveling multimedia exhibition, which debuted last June at the National Geographic Explorers Hall in Washington, D.C., features 70 photographs as well as writings, recordings and quilts. These works are the collective creative expressions of refugee young people living in the San Diego area, a refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border, and squatter settlements on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia.
The participatory photography programs developed and implemented by The AjA Project provide a unique means for self-discovery. Refugee youth have the opportunity to explore and document their experiences. The photographs on display offer a glimpse into the challenge of coping with war and asylum faced by these refugee students. I think it helps to have these kinds of pictures because we can relate more to people that are around our age and stories that come into these pictures than if we were to see it on the news and if we were to see what is going on in these countries, we cant really tell how the people actually feel. Now we know," said Jennie Richardson, a young visitor to the exhibition in DC.
By providing cameras and other visual media tools, The AjA Projects programs empower refugee and displaced youth to control how they are viewed and represented, as active, important and equal members of the global community. Furthermore, by exhibiting students work in venues from Bogota to Bangkok, AjA works to educate people about the realities faced by refugee youth. Whether the story involves losing ones parents to para-militaries in Colombia, barely surviving attacks by the Burmese military regime, or making shoes instead of going to school in Afghanistan, these narratives and images are testimonies to the worlds ongoing human rights abuses, as well as pieces of living history that deserve public awareness.
The childrens photographs and stories from all three project sites can be experienced at: www.ajaproject.org
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