These powerful photos capture life as a refugee through the eyes of Syrian children

By Soumaya El Filali

In one photo, a little girl wearing a maroon sweatshirt and baby pink pants plays on a makeshift swing. In another, three women sit around a small stove, warming themselves and preparing dinner.

These are just two of the many stirring photographs featured in Lahza 2 (which means moment in Arabic), a 10-day exhibit at the Al Madina Theater in Beirut last month.

UNICEF, in partnership with Lebanese NGO Zakira, dedicated an entire year to teach 500 Syrian refugee children aged 7-12 living in 63 camps and settlements basic camera skills, providing them with 500 disposable cameras to capture daily life as a refugee in Lebanon through their own eyes.

“Its intimate, it’s at night, or when their mothers are preparing their food, things that we’re not usually part of,” said UNICEF communications specialist Salam Abdulmunem. “For us it’s extraordinary, because we don’t always see their point of view. We talk on behalf of them but sometimes we don’t give them a chance to say things.”

The exhibition began with the screening of a documentary about the refugee children in Lebanon followed by the official release of a photography book titled, “Lahza 2 – Zakira” which includes 142 of the 13,500 pictures taken by the children. The Zakira team also managed to have some of the refugee children present at the exhibition to have them express their thoughts about the photography experience and their work on display.

“My brother is still young,” Omar Msaid, one of the children involved in the project, told the BBC. “When we go back to Syria, and my brother grows up, I will tell him, ‘remember this picture when we were in Lebanon in the camps, and how we came back to Syria’?”

The organization also shared short videos of the participants, on YouTube, expressing their struggle in refugee camps across Lebanon and reminiscing old memories in their homeland.

The Lahza 2 project did more than just keep the children busy in the midst of all their struggles and ongoing suffering, but provided them with a much-needed creative outlet and breathing space where they did not have to think about the next day and what it may bring. It also gave them a powerful voice to showcase their lives and experiences to the rest of the world, one photograph at a time, empowering them in the process.

During the course of the project, the children were often seen posing and running around the camps practicing their newly found photography skills with a smile.

“The camera taught me the meaning of a fleeting moment,” said one of the children in the documentary. “When I take a picture, I freeze that moment.”