TURNING THE LENS

On March 7th 2017, in partnership with Singa France and FRED & FARID Agency, for one day an entire Liberation issue was written by 21 refugees from different countries with one challenge: explain beyond today’s news how they see France. A paper by the refugees but not on refugees.

Clown Me In is a theatre company founded by Sabine Choucair of Lebanon and Gabriela Munoz of Mexico. Through interactive workshops and performances, the company uses clowning to spread laughter and provide relief to disadvantaged communities while exploring human vulnerabilities and helping individuals to accept them. Clown Me In has worked in communities around the world, including in Mexico, Lebanon, India, Brazil, Morocco, Jordan, Syria, Greece and the United Kingdom and with Palestinian refugees.

Clown Me In's Digital Storytelling workshop is based on social therapy process, but with an emphasis on exploring personal stories and turning them into short movies. All movies are shown within the group, and some go on to be screened in the participants’ home communities or at film festivals.

Developing their personal stories helps participants to explore difficult aspects of their lives, and sharing these stories helps to highlight the struggles and experiences shared by many people.

Participants need no technical background in filmmaking to attend the workshop, though most assist in the technical process by shooting footage, recording sound and assisting the project facilitators during editing

Workshop led by Sabine Choucair with Al-JANA/ARCPA that works with communities that face marginalization in Lebanon in building on their strengths, and documenting and disseminating their empowering experiences and cultural contributions. Stemming from its work in the arts, AL-JANA also produces learning and creative resources by and for children and youth.

For several years Clown Me In has also produced a street theatre performance called The Caravan of which Sabine is the artistic director. Currently in it's third iteration, the Caravan aims to put the stories and voices of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon at the heart of a street theatre performance by travelling up and down the country recording their stories and playing them out loud as part of the performance. The first Caravan's performance was created in a collaboration between professional theatre makers and non professional refugee artists, the second, entitled 'Back to School' focused on teaching children and their parents the importance of going to school and encouraging them to register for the upcoming academic year and the third, entitled 'Van 12', aimed to raise awareness for children's rights across the country.

Four wonderful actors come to tell Lebanon how children's rights are being violated and teaching them about their rights.

A 15min documentary detailing the process of the Caravan project.

The process of harvesting stories is a very interesting and important process facilitated by the Caravan workshops.

The Worldwide Tribe use creative storytelling to bring a personal, human perspective to the issues that people want to know about, while investing in grassroots projects that make a direct difference to the lives of those in need. They believe that the world is getting smaller, and want to connect people all over the globe in one community of international citizens: The Worldwide Tribe.

Voices of the Children provides a vibrant platform for creativity and self-expression through the arts and media giving a safe space for children affected by displacement and trauma to reclaim their individual agency, positivity and confidence.

On location in the Za'atari refugee camp filming for "Welcome to My House" music video collaboration with Luc and the Lovingtons. Dancing and filming with a class of kindergartners, Voices of the Children turned the tables and gave them the cameras to film. This is the result.

Photographer, Tasneem Alsultan, reflects on her time teaching photography to Syrian refugee youth with Voices of the Children in February of 2016 in Amman, Jordan.

My Dream, My Right is the result of the Za'atari Film Workshop; an initiative co-sponsored by Voices of the Children and Save the Children that included a three-week filmmaking experience for Syrian refugee teens in Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. Using camera phones as their recording device, this workshop provided the basics of documentary filmmaking. The end result of the workshop is nine documentary shorts filmed entirely by the teens on a subject of their choosing. In addition, each film is scored independently by music composition students at McNally Smith College of Music in the USA.

MY DREAM, MY RIGHT TRAILER