Exile Voices and Nature in the Camp

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PHOTO BY © NALIN BASHAR, 10 YEARS OLD WHEN THE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP WAS LAUNCHED. SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMP, KAWERGOSK, IRAQI KURDISTAN

By: Kira Sadler, based on a photo gallery by Reza Visual Academy published on Voices for Biodiversity

Source: https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/

Most of us can’t even fathom the realities of being exiled from our home country, let alone the experience of living in a refugee camp. In such a precarious situation, considering nature and other species seems unlikely at best. However improbable, Reza Visual Academy began a project called Exile Voices in December 2013, teaching 20 young Syrian refugees the art of photography. One of their assignments tasking them with finding “Nature in the Camp.”

In January 2018, photos from the “Nature in the Camp” project were published by Voices for Biodiversity. All the photos were taken by 10- to 15-year-old Syrian residents of the Kawergosk Refugee Camp, and offer unique insights into life and nature inside a refugee camp.

Kawergosk Camp is in northern Iraq, near the cities of Mosul and Erbil, in an area known as Iraqi Kurdistan and is home to 7,951 people who have been displaced from their homes in Syria. As war continues to rage in their home country, residents are not likely to be returning home soon.