The Afghan refugee child who created this artwork was able to create something
beautiful and peaceful in the midst of great suffering.
WHAT IS HOME? WHERE IS HOME? Life Through the Eyes of Afghan Child Refugees
Joint Production of Catholic Relief Services and Capital Children's Museum
Over the years, Pakistan has been host to approximately two million Afghan refugees, who fled during years of war and drought. The Shamshatoo refugee camp, near Peshawar, Pakistan has been home to as many as 60,000 Afghan refugees. Afghans at Shamshatoo live in tents, with little claim but the clothes on their back. For those refugees, the will to survive is their greatest sustenance.
In August and September of 2001, more than 3,000 Afghan refugee children in the Shamshatoo camp participated in a drawing contest, which was held in the camp’s schools. The schools are nothing more than large tents or shelters, but children try to learn there and teachers teach as they do anywhere in the world. In fact, schools take on an extra significance for these children who have undergone such upheaval. Attending class and spending time with other children helps restore some normalcy to their disrupted lives.
The contest was part of an education project sponsored by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which delivered school supplies, food and clothing to male and female children of the camp ranging tin age from 3 to 15 years. CRS supported a distribution for each of the 3,184 children who participated in the contest, providing them with educational and art materials, such as notebooks, pencils and erasers; food, clothing, including school uniforms; and sporting goods such as soccer balls and cricket equipment. Teachers selected 153 finalists who then received school bags filled with coloring books, crayons, notebooks, games and sweets.
Of those 153 drawing, 28 were sent to CRS’ world headquarters in Baltimore. The intent was that their display in the United States would draw attention to the plight of Afghan refugees, particularly, Afghan refugee children. The drawing themselves, many of which present violence and war, and daily life in a refugee camp, testify to the harsh reality these children know. (It is important to note that the drawings were completed pre-U.S. Military campaign, so the war scenes are assumed to represent images of the Soviet occupation and the Afghan civil war.)
Upon viewing the drawings, Capital Children’s Museum (CCM) offered to design and display the artwork as an exhibit entitled WHAT IS HOME? WHERE IS HOME? Life Through the Eyes of Afghan Child Refugees. The exhibit has since been displayed at CCM in Washington, DC museum, the Senate Russell Rotunda on Capitol Hill, at the Chicago Children’s Museum and Seattle University.