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Images and Testimonies from the Camps of Lebanon

Palestinian Camps of Sabra and Borj Al Barajneh, Beirut - LEBANON

The project "Images and Testimonies from the Camps of Lebanon" encourages children of the Palestinian Camps in Lebanon to express their emotions and hopes of becoming "journalists" or "directors". This project has been designed by the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (ARCPA), which is a non-profit organization created in 1990, providing informal learning programs, whose objective is to fight poverty and the lack of identity references in the camps.

Thirty children of between 9 and 14 years of age, who have in most cases stopped attending schools in the Palestinian Camps of Sabra and Borj Al-Barajneh, will depart in search of elderly people of the camps. They will carry souvenirs of Palestine (before 48), and of the exile. They will interview them, film them and take pictures of them. Thanks to these accounts, the children will rebuild their past and culture, in order to better understand their refugee situation and reconcile their identity with their self-esteem. Playing the journalists, children acquire, at the same time, the sense of research and critique, and the necessary technical and artistic competence to carry out the project. The reports and pictures are then shown to other children or adults within the framework of exhibitions and film festivals organized in the Camps. Some Lebanese cultural centers have also welcomed photo exhibits realized by children. The sale of certain visual productions allows the financing part of the schooling of the children who participate in it.

Fifty years after their parents' trip out of Palestine, a fourth generation of Palestinian children still find themselves in a precarious situation of refugees: marginalization, poverty, lack of educational structures, etc. The political and economic future of the Palestinian refugees seems to be even more overwhelming than that of their parents and grandparents. In fact, contrary to the latter, the new generation is faced to the progressive degradation of the links with the Palestinian past, folklore and culture, particularly due to the disappearance of elderly people, who are agents of the collective memory of their people. The ARCPA, by carrying out the project "Images and Testimonies from the Camps of Lebanon" aims at renewing the links with the past, offering their children the possibility of rediscovering their parents' culture and preserving it for future generations. Understanding their history, the refugee children build their identity, giving it a sense of self-esteem.

Mr. Mo'ataz DAJANI
Founder and General Coordinator Al-Jana/The Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (ARCPA)
P.O. Box 114/5017 Beirut, LEBANON
Tel./Fax: 00961 1 819 970
E-mail: arcpa@cyberia.net.lb
Website: http://www.oneworld.org/al-jana/

Institutional Partners
Najdeh Association
Beit Atfal Al-Somoud
Women Humanitarian Organization
Financial Partners
Catholic Relief Services
Christian Aid
European Community
The Jerusalem Fund
Physicians International
Monib Masri Institution for Development
Norwegian People's Aid
Palestinian Studies Trust
Qattan Foundation
Radda Barnen Welfare Association
World University Service

April 1998