In the summer of 2022, we built a media lab in the Arbat refugee camp near Sulaymaniyah, in partnership with Kurdistan Save the Children. The camp is home to roughly 6,000 Kurdish Syrians who fled the violence in the Kurdish regions of Syria. The lab is set up for digital photography, filmmaking, and editing, and it runs workshops year-round. In-person classes are taught by two alumni of the program, and supervised by former teacher and now board member, Niga Salam, from Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan.
One recent cohort of twelve students, Syrian refugees who fled ISIS and the war, spent six months building photography portfolios around six of the UN Sustainable Development Goals with the Canon Young People Programme. Their work became an exhibition in Sulaymaniyah, "Out of Square," which drew guests from across the region, including the First Lady of Iraq.
As the program grew, we added a second building with classrooms and a media lab. The students maintain the space themselves. Five alumni now work as photographers and intern in communications roles with local NGOs.
