ABOUT THE PROJECT

 

When I first met the children of "Come True" Project, I thought to myself: "Why are Israeli kids living in Uganda?".

 

In fact, these children grew up and spent the most important years of their lives in Israel. They attended Israeli public schools, spoke fluent Hebrew, hung out with Israeli friends, they enjoyed listening to pop Israeli music and dreamed about going back "home", to Israel.

 

Their parents arrived in Israel in 2006, after escaping misery and war, and experiencing all kinds of tortures by traffickers in the Sinai. In 2012, only one year after South Sudan gained independence, Israel deported 700 members of the South Sudanese refugee community back to their "new" country. However, peace did not last long. A few months later a devastating civil war broke out in South Sudan, killing thousands of innocent people and displacing millions. As the armed conflict in South Sudan enters its fifth year in 2018, the humanitarian crisis has continued to intensify and expand. The country suffers from the lack of basic services and infrastructures, unemployment rates are extremely high, diseases such as malaria and typhoid are common, the population suffers from hunger and lack of access to safe drinking water and basic health services. 

 

Thanks to the generous initiative of the NGO "Become", over 100 children (on 500 deported from Israel) had the chance to be transferred from South Sudan to nearby Uganda, where they could live in a safe environment and study in a good boarding school. As the kids of "Come True" Project had to move once again, they had to learn how to speak the local language, adapt to a non-western lifestyle, away from their parents who find themselves trapped in Juba.

 

Following a 2-day workshop on the basics of photography and discussions about the power of photography as a tool for self-expression, each student received a disposable 35mm camera. The group had 1 week and 27 shots each to tell their personal stories. As the setting remains the same (the children do not live the school compound if during summer break), the images reflect in a unique way how every single photographer perceives his reality in the school. 

 

At the end of this period, each student received the pictures and had the opportunity to analyze and present them in front of the class.

Below, a selection created by the group.

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