A Circle of Hearts

Some days of our lives pass by like a sweet dream where you see nothing but beauty wherever you look; a dream, that is as long as a lifetime experience, bringing out the best in you, and yet as short as a fracture of a happy second in the book of your life.

A floes stream of new discovery and inspiration arises. You find yourself floating in space with smiles that lighten up a million stars away.

Smiles of Children, and teenagers manifesting love with colors and radiating the beauty of the pure nature of their being. They are unique, beautiful, positive, strong - willed and above all, they are challengers. They are young beautiful heroes. They sweep you of your feet easily to their background, and they force you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you. They force you to maximize you own potential, to become better than the average person that you are to make a conversation.

The second you lose yourself and let your actions speak and communicate your feelings and intentions, you will find out how useless the words can be, because you will be sure that the potency of your messages is delivered and served better than when we use our common verbal nonsense. You question yourself, who is more blessed? And who should be more graceful? You will learn to be natural simple and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything.

While you can tell if their words are wrong or distorted or so far from normal because you have something to compare it to, you know how it’s SUPPOSED to sound like, but being open to a new world you will be able to see the ironic and amusing side of the events that you might not be somehow so familiar with. The dream will end, whether it will be repeated or not, we know now that we are all special cases and we are unique and we are all beautiful, and as every word has a symbol, like the heart or (pinky, index, thumb sign) that is used instead of the word “love”; every one of us has a symbol in this vast universe with one common thing that is a vibrant heart.

Thus we are all a circle of hearts ~

"Made with Leaf" art-based circle at Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf - Jamhour on July 10th 
Written by Hanane Tabet
Photography by : Hanane Tabet & Sandra El Heybe

Leafers since Summer 2014

Growing up

        A bunch of little ‪‎refugee hearts awaited us that day. We added ‪colorful patterns to their daily school out growing days - Saturday, February 28th, Jusoor - Syrians Forward Together (جسور سوريا) 

       Photo credits : Hanane Tabet

-       Child :" I want to draw too, just like you"

-       Me :" but you can’t draw on the walls"

-       Child :"I don't have to draw on the wall, just give me a paper and I’ll draw..

Here, next you.. Just like you."

Then she stands staring to the wall, I dive through her eyes and into her mind, putting myself in her place and think:

In fact, we grew up during war, but that didn’t stop us to dream. We can be whatever we want to be. We will conquer ignorance, we will conquer helplessness, and we will conquer captivity.

In one corner I stand dreaming of growing up, getting an education, and graduating.

In another corner, I stand wondering, within my own imagination, through the seas.

Then I move along the wall to dream of being that innocent little girl, dressed in pink, smiling and waving.

I can be free.

I can be happy.

I look again to that same wall and I dream of being a superhero. A superhero stopping war.

I want to become like superman, I want to save my country, and i want to help. And when I do... I will go back in my memory to the day I was helpless.. When a drawing on the wall made me believe that one day I can. 

Written by Layane Rakka

Leafer since Summer 2014

Rising Youth from Refuge

On Saturday June 14th, Young Syrian Refugees shared with us their own stories and elaborated through Drama and Brainstorming interactive exercises their deepest thoughts ! On Saturday June 21st, a collective work of leafers and Syrian Refugee Youth liberated through colors and illustrations on walls. "Refuge, Home, Community, Heroes and Friendships" were keywords of the themes projected by the youth, on the 14th. All these artworks were conceptualized in collaboration with Danish Refugee Council in Lebanon at Old Saida city. Worth mentioning, the neighborhood warmly welcomed our leaves, on walls, on stairs..

" Coming from Lebanon, a country that has been welcoming refugees from Palestine since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, I knew how bad a refugee’s life could be. Well at least I thought I knew. Even though we live in the same country, refugees in Lebanon have an appalling social and economic condition. They were forbidden to work and therefore they didn’t have access to any kind of social aid given by the government and of course no easy access to hospitals and schools. 

Today, Lebanon is not only welcoming Palestinians but also a lot of Syrian families who have been escaping the civil war in their country since 2011. 

Currently, and according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon exceeded 1 million, without counting the non-registered refugees.  This number would be definitely massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation, the impact is shocking. 

Syrian families can be seen everywhere in the capital. They live on the streets with their kids and try to survive day by day. "While every refugee's story is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage: the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives." As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres described.

After seeing in what conditions those people are living in, I thought about helping them. Helping them, but this time not by giving them money, food, clothes… It is certain that these refugees are in an enormous need of money. But they also need a house, a shelter, food, jobs, going to school, proper life conditions! What can we do about this? Yes we can give them money, maybe food and clothes sometimes. Still, kids are being held by bunch of Mafioso that tries to collect money from them. Kids are not going to schools and a whole generation of children just lost the meaning of being a child. They just lost their only chance to be innocent, carefree to be children once. The war took everything from them.

I had the chance to do something for these children while working with I leaf Art on two projects concerning Syrian refugees.  And this time we tried to give more than what money can give. 

On Saturday June 14^th 2014, I worked with I leaf Art’s crew and around 30 young refugees. Note that most of them were Palestinian refugees from the Yarmouk camp in Syria, which means they were already refugees back in Syria.  

We started by dividing them into two groups; a group for some brainstorming interaction to exercise their deepest thoughts and a second group to share their own stories and elaborated them through a small Drama act.
Not surprisingly, their stories and their deepest thoughts illustrated the war and their miserable life conditions. 

he small act was all about this “Abou Mohammad” who lost his son, got injured and escaped his country with his wife and daughters. He was in an urgent need for a surgery and of course no hospitals in Lebanon would let him in without paying a deposit. It all ended, when his oldest daughter came and told him that she could work to get the money for the surgery.  Every kid in the group agreed on the story. And saw in it something very personal. Most of them actually shared the same life. After presenting the scene, we held a discussion and pushed the kids to find solutions for those common refugees’ problems. Again, those solutions illustrated what those kids are dealing with everyday. They know which association can help them, who to call, what to do. And they acted as adults regarding saving the life of “Abou Mohammad”. At this point, I realized how much can the war take from a child.  

On Saturday June 21^st 2014, this time we tried to give those children a little hope after what the war did to them. Again with I leaf art, we tried to add colors to their lives.  In old Saida, “Refuge, Home, Community, Heroes and Friendships” were the keywords of the project. Superman, a warming neighborhood and some colorful stairs were added to these children’s dark memories of the war. "

                                                                                                                                Written by Lea Kodeih

                                                                                                                                                                     Volunteer Leafer - Summer 2014

Political Sciences Student - Menton (France)

 

A Better Tomorrow - غداً يوم أفضل

Artworks implemented on Tuesday May 20th, at Nabatieh district. Adding themes, ambitions and colors for a better Tomorrow, to the daily lives of young children and teenagers Syrian refugees, providing them better 

friendly spaces; supported by Mercy Corps Lebanon and collaborated by MC CFS Psychosocial team!

                              Photo credits : Mariam Mohamad Mosleh, Mine Assi & Elie Aouad