Refugee stories and prayers highlighted in SAT-7 campaign
As hostility towards refugees increases in different parts of the world, SAT-7 is raising the voices of those who have been forced to flee their homelands, in a campaign that calls for kindness and “making room”, on World Refugee Day this week (20 June).
The team behind SAT-7’s Gender Equality and FoRB project has been filming the stories, reflections and prayers of refugees in Egypt, creating a series of powerful videos that will be shared on social media and SAT-7’s ARABIC channel.
Project lead Maggie Morgan has also written an open letter about the life-changing experience of filming these stories, describing it as “sacramental work”. She said, “Silencing the room to hold space for stories of pain and resilience purified our own hearts. We, as a team of filmmakers, were changed by it. Because when you truly listen, you truly change. We saw the fingerprints of God saving lives amidst human harshness and violence.”
Among the stories they filmed were Akami’s, a young woman from Sudan, who had to flee the war that has been devastating her homeland for over two years. She was smuggled into Egypt in a gruelling journey across the desert. “The trip was the hardest experience in my life… I surrendered to the belief that I would die in the desert,” she said. Akami had been studying nursing in Sudan, but the war brought her studies to an end, and though she had the opportunity to enrol in an online course, the need to earn money means she has to miss lectures. “Life here is very hard,” she said.
“MOMENTS OF SILENCE”
The harsh experiences shared by the refugees were extremely moving for the whole production team, but sometimes it was what they did not say that hit the hardest.
“I was very touched by moments of silence in the interviews, moments when people could not describe what they saw, but you could see on their faces that it was hard,” said Paula Talaat, Director of Photography. “Some people were strong enough to retell their experiences… But others had moments of silence that were more powerful than words.”
Watch the team’s moving and heartfelt reflections here:
According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, there are 17 million forcibly displaced and stateless people in the Middle East and North Africa.[1]
In one of the videos made for the campaign, “To be Called a Refugee”, different people describe how they feel about the label. One woman said, “‘Refugee’ means being alone;” one man said, “The word ‘refugee’ makes a man feel humiliated. You feel a sense of loss; something inside you is missing.”
WITNESSING KINDNESS
But amongst all the painful and harrowing stories recalled, it was also the sacrificial acts of kindness that stood out. “I want the world to know about the kindness I’ve witnessed when filming with forced migrants and asylum seekers in Egypt”, Maggie said. “We may practise an easy kindness, a giving or a generosity that does not disrupt our lives. They do the harder work: the work of carrying each other through the desert; of selling their mobile phones and possessions to bribe a smuggler to allow someone they don’t know to ride on the back of a truck with them. Together they somehow make it safely from one country to another, just by making room for each other in cramped spaces, by doing their best to ensure that no one is left behind.”
On World Refugee Day, Maggie’s call is to all of us: to “make room” for those among us in need of refuge. “This was a life-changing experience,” she said. “And the reason why it is life-changing is because I think we were all unaware of how narrow-minded and self-centred we have all been.”
Gender Equality & FoRB is a five-year SAT-7 project that comprises television and social media programs, online campaigns and on-the-ground activities including support groups, workshops and counselling referrals. It aims to help women and girls in the Arab world enjoy the freedom and dignity they deserve as people made equal with men by God. It is implemented by SAT-7 Egypt in partnership with the Norwegian Mission Society and supported by DIGNI. You can find out more about the project here.
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