Arts for empowerment for refugees

Hi! I'm Anrike Piel, a fashion photographer from Estonia,  going to volunteer in Beirut, Lebanon  from February 2nd - April 2nd at an education & empowerment center for women and children refugees. 

I'm raising funds to be able to offer as many  young women, I'll be working with, as much as possible. 

At the women’s center, the training  includes courses in sewing, embroidery, hairdressing etc so I came to an idea to collaborate with the young women. 
Refugee women are associated with the feelings of fear and pain. Yet they are women like all of us, the same hopes and dreams. Their strengths are mistaken to be their weaknesses. With this project, the goal is to open them to the world where people are able to voice themselves, art has value, individuality is encouraged, people are standing up. For them to explore their creativity and not only to be war victims but unique in their own way. 

With their ideas and help, I want to produce storytelling images with involvement of fashion and fantasy. Photograph the women involved, creating stories that talk about who they are. Make it about them. I will guide them on their creative process, motivate them to look outside of the box, encourage them to trust their intuition and boldly bring their own Self to their creation. 

The program will offer them a chance to express themselves in different mediums. Perhaps the most important part of the program is for them to get to know themselves better, reconnect with themselves, through many different exercises that also include painting, drawing, diy projects. Photo shoots will be  the final stage of it all.  

I have asked designers to donate a piece of their items to enable women to dream bigger, get a better vision of the possibilities to create, dress up and as well see they’re not alone. So far, I can proudly say, I have about 24 designers from around Europe who have sent donations my way.
I will provide the women with notebooks where they can write, sketch, draw. Supply them with paints, paper, brushes, feathers, glitter etc to explore different forms of art, be inventive with what we have. Printing photos, collecting magazines, researching different influential artists about whom i  print out folders for creating moodboards and such. Building sets. And making images.

Please read, what a friend of mine who’s already there, has written in her blog about the life in the center, to get a better picture- http://anakilani.com/life/ 


 About the Non-Profit: SB OverSeas 


The education and empowerment centers are set up by the Belgian non-profit SB OverSeas . They give remedial education to refugee children ages 6-12 in order to prepare them to pass the requirements needed to get into the Lebanese school system. Not only do the SB OverSeas centers help children, but they help the mothers and women living in refugee camps by teaching them English and new skill sets such as sewing and craftwork. 

The challenges faced by refugee women are diverse. Some will have lost husbands to the conflict, others children. As a result, many face the difficult transition of becoming a breadwinner for their family, at the very moment that they need the time and space to grieve the loss of their family, friends, and home. The programmes in the women’s centres are designed to empower women in an economical, psychological and social sense.

The largest number of displaced people who have escaped the Syrian Civil War are still in the region. Lebanon has absorbed over a million refugees, or more than a fifth of its population. 

I am genuinely grateful and beyond humbled by this opportunity.  I understand the work will be challenging, frustrating, and tiring at times, but it is a challenge I will be thankful to take on. I will work everyday to empower women and children to feel worthy of love, compassion, confident and self belief, for them to be each others biggest cheerleaders and admire one another. 

Thank you for visiting my page and please know that no contribution is too small! I am thankful for any help and appreciate it wholeheartedly! 

Love, 

Anrike

Where will your donation go?

I'm raising funds to cover the costs I've had so far as I don't know really how much everything will cost in the end, My estimation is that the total spent will be about double of what I'm collecting. 

1. €400 plane ticket + packages
2. €500 to SB OverSeas to help cover accommodations and food 
3. €160 Travel Health Insurance
4. Living Expenses: €300
5.Supplies I will provide: €600 (lighting eq, memorycards amongst the art supplies)
= €1960


Anything raised over my goal will go to SB OverSeas