Watch the video above … Done? OK, great.
Do you feel inspired? Want to help? We thought so. But, DADAAB STORIES isn’t just about helping, it’s about learning and sharing the stories of these 500,000 refugees whose reality is a bit different than mine and yours, to say the least.
Dadaab is home to nearly 500,000 people, the vast majority refugees from Somalia displaced by armed conflict, natural disaster or persecution. So, as you can imagine, the camp’s inhabitants are faced with fear and anxiety amongst many other emotions every day. But although their reality is different, their spirit is just as promising as someone in a much better circumstance, as you can tell from the trailer.
The trailer above is a sneak peek of DADAAB STORIES, a new interactive, multi-media documentary project, coming soon, which charts everyday life in the world’s largest refugee camp. Bringing together video, poetry, music, community journalism and personal blogs, DADAAB STORIES is a living, curated collection of personal stories from one of the most challenging environments on the planet.
So what is DADAAB?
Located in Kenya, near the Somali border, Dadaab is the world’s largest refugee settlement. Managed by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Dadaab serves a population of nearly 500,000 refugees, the majority Somali. Refugees arrive in the camp fleeing armed conflict, disaster or persecution. Following famine and renewed conflict in the region in 2011, over 100,000 new refugees flooded into the camp, and the region has been hit by a series of major security incidents ranging from kidnappings of aid workers to IED explosions.
Here’s a little background on FilmAid and DADAAB STORIES:
DADAAB STORIES is an evolving online documentary and ultimately a collaborative community media project. It is a place for refugees to share their stories with the world. It’s an initiative of FilmAid, a humanitarian media organization that has been making, teaching and screening films in Dadaab since 2006.
DADAAB STORIES is nonlinear and multimedia. Stories are told through video, photography, poetry, music and journalism. Everyone in the Dadaab refugee camp has a story to tell, and this is the place to share these stories. Just like Dadaab itself, DADAAB STORIES is always changing, and new content is added regularly.
DADAAB STORIES was inspired by the countless untold stories of refugees living in Dadaab and around the globe. Acting as an art piece, oral history archive and advocacy tool, DADAAB STORIES brings the daily realities of refugees closer to a global audience than ever before.
Why DADAAB STORIES?
“Our goal with DADAAB STORIES is to help open up a window between global audiences and the extraordinary and inspiring community in Dadaab, people we’re privileged to work with every day,” says Liz Manne, Executive Director of FilmAid. “Normally the media only shows up in these far-flung, dusty corners of the globe when headlines are screaming. But it’s important to know that less sensational life goes on in Dadaab every day — real, human life in all its colors. Stubborn, confounding, rich, beautiful, comic, messy — often devastating — yet sometimes glorious. These lives – and their stories — are real, they count and they deserve to be known.”
