As part of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for the Protection and Reintegration of Migrants, the IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa based in Dakar andthe IOM Mission in Nigeria asked Reza, to teach photography to a group of returning Nigerians and professional journalists to promote the expression and sharing of the migratory experience through photography and writing. Through the development of the expressive capacities of returning migrants and the promotion of citizen journalism, this training aims to facilitate the integration of beneficiaries of the Joint Initiative and raise public awareness of migration issues through stories and authentic testimonials as well as informed journalistic articles. In March 2021, face-to-face training took place in Nigeria followed by remote support until May 31, 2021.

The Youth Lens project
Youth Lens, a program launched in 2018 by Unicef in Turkey, aims to train 60 syrian refugees and turks from Izmir, Gaziantep and Istanbul to learn the language of the image.
From ages 11 to 18, for four months, these girls and boys are introduced to image storytelling in three urban areas of Turkey. As part of this training, students learn the tools of photography, and become familiar with visual narration to tell their realities and dreams through pictures. They share different aspects of their lives following specific themes to explore; they seize their destinies and project themselves into their futures.
Youths gathered around a common project, learn to share and live together, thus contributing to the social cohesion of their environment. In light of the news, it is fundamental to give resonance to these actions that help build bridges.
The exhibition Rêves d’avenir is an awareness-building tool
This exhibition comes to concretize the actions of training in the language of the image by paying tribute to the photographs of the 60 young people. Behind this event, the challenge is to attract the attention of an international public, to demonstrate the positive impact of the non-formal education program on the daily lives of young people and to stress the importance of the peaceful coexistence that ensues.

During the Rhodes Forum on Dialogue of Civilizations organized by DOC, non profit organization Reza Visual Academy will present the work of the Syrian refugee children trained by Reza besides some of Reza’s pictures.

Dear friends,

“Exile Voices” photographs by Syrian and Yazidi children from two camps in Iraqi Kurdistan will be exhibited in the Malta Arts Festival, along with photographs of Reza and Maltese photographers Charles Mifsud and DarrinZammit Lupi.

We will hope to see many of you there in support of our students and the activities of Reza Visual Academy.

EXILE VOICES 

Exile Seen through the Eyes of Young Refugee Camp Reporters

Over the last three decades, Reza has borne witness to the harsh realities of exile. He tries in his own way to heal its invisible scars, particularly those of children and youths. As a response to the enforced idleness of the camps, he seeks to teach them a universal language – the language of images, to enable them to become the camp’s own reporters, actors in their own realities, the better to share them with the rest of the world.

In December 2013, Reza made his first trip to the Syrian refugee camp of Kawergosk, in Iraqi Kurdistan. He established a photography workshop for the camp’s children between the ages of ten to fifteen years. An age when curiosity is at its peak, and when the visual purity of a new life is a story that can be told each day.

The Exile and Uprooting of Children

Maya Rostam is twelve years old. She likes to laugh and play with her friends. She has lots of dreams – there was no limit to life’s possibilities. Then came the fateful day, August 17, 2013, when she was forced to leave her native Syria because of the upheavals of war. Maya and her family found refuge at the Kawergosk refugee camp, located a few kilometers from Erbil, along with thousands of other families reduced to a precarious life of subsistence, possessed only of what they could manage to carry away as they fled.

“A refugee has lost everything except hope.” Today, Maya and her family have managed to make it to Turkey and a chance to put down new roots and possibly begin a new life.

Deliar, Solav, Maryam, Zeraf … Like Maya, seventeen children joined the photography workshop at the Kawergosk camp to learn to bear witness to their daily lives. Armed with cameras furnished by Reza, they learned about the impact of images, and creating a tangible proof of their lives to show the world. Not so much about the techniques of photography, but rather about how to look at the world through the lens of a camera and reveal one’s vision to others. As Maya confided to Reza, “I want to learn photography because I think that it is a way to help the world see what I feel, what we are going through.”

The Kawergosk Photography Workshop or the Breath of a New Life

Since then, two years have gone by. The children of Kawergosk are creating their own history thanks to photography. Supervised by Mohammad Qaddri, a Syrian refugee journalist  trained by Reza, they continue to photograph their life in the camp. Some of their images, shown on the banks of the Seine in the summer of 2015 as part of the exhibition A Dream of Humanityconceived by Reza, touched the entire world. They revealed another perspective of the refugee camps and exile: that of childhoods where innocence, lucidity and wounds but also hope have their place. As they pursue their training, their undeniable talent and technical progress have shed light on a reality of whose complexity we often are unaware.

In October 2015, Reza has established a new workshop for young Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdestan: ten girls and ten boys aged seventeen to twenty, who will also become witnesses to their own lives. A viewpoint which will help them to develop resiliency.

​A third visual training session is launched in Suleymanieh.​

Over the course of teaching others about my photographic experiences and projects all over the world, I strongly emphasize that a camera is a tool to bear witness. At the Ateliers Reza in Toulouse, I saw a glimmer in the eyes of young Sabah at each technical training session. She did not necessarily seem driven by the desire to become a photographer, but was interested in expressing herself and telling her story.

After several sessions with Sabah, Jawad, Océane and the other young students who participated in the workshop, I came to understand the root of their enthusiasm. To sum it up in one sentence that I heard repeatedly from one student to another: “We are fed up with our neighborhoods, Mirail, Reynerie or Bellefontaine, all cities tainted with stories of burning cars or street fights. We want to show that our city is beautiful and that our families are just like others!”

So I came to Toulouse to help bring awareness: ghettoization undermines and damages a society. It isolates people and burns bridges in everyday life, culture and dialogue. Imagine my surprise when some of the children in Toulouse asked me: “Reza, you are always in war zones and difficult areas, so why did you come here?”

As part of the Mois de l’Image in Toulouse, Ateliers Reza invites you to visit the exhibition “My Land, My Family” from September 17^th to October 13^th at the Jose Cabanis Media Library, from September 17^th to November 17^th at the Grand M Media Library. This collection of work is the fruit of the photographic labor of forty-some young people from Reynerie, Mirail and Bellefontaine. From March to September they have been trained by professional photographers, supervised by Reza. This project is an initiative of the City of Toulouse. For more information, join the Ateliers Reza.

To celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child,  UNICEF and the World Photography Organisation, supported by Sony, launched a campaign to increase awareness.

6 young photographers from 5 continent have won the youth award of this campaign which was presented during the Sony World Photography Awards in April 2010 in Cannes by REZA. The judging panel was composed of Mary Ellen Mark, Carol Allen Storey, Bruce Davidson, Jonathan Torgovnik and led by Reza, photographer and humanitarian devoted to children’s rights

The 6 winners will join Reza and UNICEF for a workshop in Ethiopia in November 2010.

“I was very touched by the enthusiasm and great talent of those children who participated, as I believe that images as a common language in our world, could serve as pillars for peace education”, said Reza.

From June 18th to June 26th, 2008 Reza traveled to Jordan where he taught the art of photography to young Palestinian and Iraqi refugees.

Organized by National Geographic, the International NGO Medical Corp and the Jordanian foundation “Jordan River”, this photography class was given by National Geographic photographers. One of the goals of these photography classes was to facilitate the creativity of young people, and by giving them a camera, allow them to see the world differently.

Throughout his career Reza has trained numerous people in photography in refugee camp. In the 1980’s he trained Afghan refugees in Pakistan and more recently, in 2006, in young refugees in Uganda.
For Reza, photography remains a premium medium in the long road towards the freedom of expression and democracy.

The week of training in Jordan, which closed with an exhibition of the young photographers’ works at the Children’s Museum of Jordan, allowed these young refugees from 13 to 19 years old to learn a way of witnessing from their own lives through their own experiences, of war and exile.

Visit Jordan’s Photo Camp 2009 on International Medical Corp’s website at
http://www.imcworldwide.org/Page.aspx?pid=609

To read the Jordan Times article visit
http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=17825

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