Sudanese Refugee's Story to Oepn Exhibition of Photographs and Testimonials by Refugee Youth - September 8th, 2004, 3pm at the UN visitors' lobby

On September 8th, 3pm, a sudanese refugee youth will be at the UN General Assembly Building's visitors' lobby to speak about his life stories fleeing Sudan and to open a 70-piece exhibit of photographs and images by refugee youth from Burma, Colombia, Afghanista, and Sudan.

September 7, 2004 -- Our destination was America. Realizing our dreams have come true. We say Good Bye and wish for the best. We have heard stories of America where we would be rich. ...Arriving in America these stories faded away seeing it was harder than it was. Living in America was kind of being the next subject for a war. You were there to be weaken. Our pupose of coming to America was free education. Sudan had no free education and was full of war....
- Nick, 16, Sudanese AjA Project student in San Diego       

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) reports of the situation in South Sudan: First came the terror murders, rapes, pillage, arson. Now comes a life on the move, sleeping in tiny, flimsy straw huts and eating grass and seeds barely fit for animals...(UNHCR News Sept. 3rd). Nick, a 16 year old Sudanese boy experienced and escaped from a situation like this 8 years ago and resettled in San Diego. On September 8, 2004 at 3pm, Nick will be at the UN Headquarters visitors lobby to open the exhibit, to present his photographs and to speak about his stories of war and conflict in Sudan.

Nicks photographs and testimonials along with other refugee youths photographs from Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, and Burma is part of the 70 piece exhibit Lives in Transition organized by The AjA Project, a San Diego-based non-profit organization dedicated to providing innovative media arts and photography-based educational programs for refugee youth.

This traveling multimedia exhibition on display at the United Nations General Assembly Building (NE Corner, Visitors Lobby) until September 30, 2004, debuted last June at the National Geographic Explorers Hall in Washington, D.C., features 70 photographs as well as writings, recordings and quilts. These works are the intimate documentaries by refugee young people living in the San Diego area, a refugee camp on the Thai/Burmese border, and squatter settlements on the outskirts of BogotColombia.

The participatory photography programs developed and implemented by The AjA Project provide a unique means for self-discovery. Refugee youth have the opportunity to explore and document their experiences. Nicks photographs and other photographs on display offer a glimpse into the challenge of coping with war and asylum faced by these refugee students.
   
By providing cameras and other visual media tools, The AjA Projects programs empower refugee and displaced youth to control how they are viewed and represented, as active, important and equal members of the global community. Furthermore, by exhibiting students work in venues from Bogota to Bangkok, AjA works to educate people about the realities faced by refugee youth. Whether the story involves losing ones parents to para-militaries in Colombia, barely surviving attacks by the Burmese military regime, or making shoes instead of going to school in Afghanistan, these narratives and images are testimonies to the worlds ongoing human rights abuses, as well as pieces of living history that deserve public awareness.

www.ajaproject.org

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