Mobile arts classes for rural children

Alend Mohamed Zubir, 14, is no great fan of school. He is usually one of the first out of the front gate when the 12.30 bell signals the end of the first of the day’s two teaching shifts. This week, though, like last week, he has been in class every afternoon until four o’clock, one of 30 young volunteers attending three arts classes organised by Diakonia, a Swedish NGO based in the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk, in a joint funding partnership with Norwegian Christian Aid. The children have a choice of painting, drama and photography. Like his friend Biyoar, Alend opted for taking pictures. “This isn’t the first time I’ve taken a picture,” he told IRIN in Amedi, a town an hour and a half northeast of Dahuk city. “An uncle once lent me his camera at a wedding and I snapped faces all evening, boring stuff. Pressing the buttons is easy; nobody every taught me how to make the picture beautiful.” After a little over an hour spent wandering the streets of the town with cheap digital cameras lent them for the afternoon, the two boys are back in the classroom with the rest, their day’s photos downloaded onto a computer brought in by Diakonia staff. As at the end of every day’s shoot, it is time to analyse. Ten faces crowd round as the photos come up on the screen. The comments fly. “That’s a good one,” enthused one 10-year old as the teacher brought up a picture of an old garden gate. “The door frame cuts the photo in two, with sky above and grass below.” Most of the analysis remains pretty basic, but there are one or two budding photographers in the room. “The satellite dish in the bottom left is very important here,” explained 12-year old Alan Abdulrahman, gesturing at another photo. “It makes you look at the roof beams, and they’re the most interesting thing in the picture.” Alend and Biyoar are happy. Their classmates liked the photos they took of a pile of gravel outside one of the town’s building sites. “Ugly when you first think about it,” said Alend. “But there was a row of metal barrels just behind, and I liked the colours.” Back in Dahuk, Diakonia project manager Soaad Tamathyous Gorges explained that the Amedi lessons were just the first of 10 two-week courses two mobile teams would be organising in 20 villages around Dahuk province. “In rural areas, very few children have the chance to develop these sorts of talents,” she explained. “But we also hope the courses will help connect small villages to the wider community.” The plan, she said, was to punctuate the project’s progression with exhibitions, a local one at the end of every two-week course, and a joint one for every three villages. In collaboration with Rawshan, a children’s centre in Dahuk, Diakonia intends to publish a sample of the best of the children’s work in book form. Diakonia staff also said they planned to round the project up by inviting six of the most promising students from each course to Dahuk for more advanced training. “I would like to see the photographers perhaps doing small reportages for one of the local magazines Diakonia supports,” said Anthony Legg, an Australian photographer working for Diakonia who trained staff for the photography course. Since setting up its Iraqi Kurdish branch in 1994, the central plank of Diakonia’s work has been its two Psychosocial Education, Treatment and Consulting units (PSETC) - locally-staffed centres offering care for people, and particularly children, suffering from psychological problems like trauma. Like most other subsequent projects, the arts courses are linked to PSETC. Trained in the basics of child psychology by PSETC staff before the courses began, the two mobile teams of teachers have already found one child in Amedi in need of care. He has been referred to Dahuk’s PSETC for treatment.