By Sabrina Guo, 12 Writing My Own Path As a child, I loved the smell of libraries. I would flip through the pages of any book, and take a good, long sniff. My favorite scent was sweet–a bit of lemon and coffee, mixed with paper, of course. However, other books had a bitter smell and were covered with all kinds of food stains, which I hated because it reminded me of how books were sometimes treated just as paper and nothing more. I thought of each book as a life–a key to a specific person’s brain. At the same time, I hated books. I respected them and liked their smells, yes, but I absolutely loathed words. Every time I tried to read something as minor as a news headline, words would swarm around me like taunting wasps. While other kids talked about their new favorite books, I was the wallflower, standing away from the crowd and nibbling slowly on my sandwich. A memory: when I was five, I learned that To Kill a Mockingbird was a book loved all around the world. I decided to read it–after all, if there were so many positive reviews, how could I not love it? In addition, I was determined to open myself up and conquer my fear of words. I asked my father to check it out at the library. When he walked through our door with it, I was giddy with excitement. I flipped through it, smelling it like a perfume tester. It was unique and unlike any other book I’d smelled before–like moss drenched in rain, bittersweet and mature. Greedily, I started reading the first page. But almost immediately, dark words started to choke the air around me. The enlarged first letter pounced on top of me, and the rest of the words quickly followed, swimming around me. I tried to push my fears away, telling myself I wasn’t going to be engulfed this time. My fear of reading was going to end right there, right then, that second, with that very book. But because of its advanced language, I had no idea what was happening in the story. It was boring and tiring… and I was only halfway down the first page. I exhaled, telling myself there would be a next time. Then I slammed the book shut in frustration. Although I had a complicated relationship with books, I did love writing song lyrics. After school, I would transform my tangled thoughts into strings of words, which I wrote down in a tiny notebook about the size of my hand. Little did I know that these song lyrics were actually poems; later I would take a risk and reshape my lyrics into a more literary form. And that was how I took my first step into writing. From there, I decided to experiment with reading again. I borrowed many types of library books, but it was fantasy that finally hooked me. Fantasy made me feel like I was soaring above moonlit clouds, plucking shimmering stars from the sky and collecting them inside of my heart. These stories gave me an amazing sense of freedom, adventure, and suspense. And after a while, my interests expanded to other genres; I even started to read some news articles, which had intimidated me so much before. My father and I like to watch the news together, and last year, as coverage of the refugee crisis increased, he encouraged me to dig deeper into the topic. It can sometimes sound like it’s a simple, fast process to immigrate to the United States; but as I read up on the issue, I discovered that it’s far from easy or quick. It can actually take up to several years to go through all the necessary steps! Even after reaching the U.S., refugees can still face economic and emotional difficulties, along with discrimination. After learning all of this, I decided to write a blog about it, as I am a blogger and contributing writer to the children’s magazine, Stone Soup. I was also inspired to write a poem addressed to refugee children, welcoming them to their new home in the United States. I tried to explain some of things that they might encounter in their new country, from academic pressures to peer pressure. Writing the poem enabled me to think more deeply about what a refugee child might experience after leaving their home country. It challenged me to think outside of my own life and circumstances, and this poem was one of the first works I’d written truly from my heart. Around that time, William Rubel, the founder of Stone Soup, mentioned in his weekly newsletter that he hoped to create a platform to showcase refugee children’s art and writing. Due to my interest in the refugee crisis, I immediately volunteered to help. He suggested that I begin researching organizations, photographers, and artists who were working with refugee children. Through doing this, I found many amazing organizations. One in particular, Another Kind of Girl Collective (AKGC), really struck me. This organization, founded by Laura Doggett, holds photography and film workshops for Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan. AKGC aims to give refugee girls the deeply necessary space, training, and equipment to develop their preferred art forms, along with providing them a platform to share their own stories and experiences. The girls prove themselves not to be passive and tragic beings, which is sometimes how the media portrays them, but rather hardworking, creative, smart, and motivated visionaries. Because of how much I admired Laura’s work, I reached out to her through email, asking if I could interview her. I had doubts about whether she would respond. After all, I was just a twelve-year-old girl, and she was surely busy with her extremely important work. So you can imagine my elation when I did hear back from her! She told me she would be happy to give me an interview. She was heading to Jordan and even invited me
refugee project news
Refugee, Reviewed by Ivy Halpern, 13
I read the book Refugee by Alan Gratz. Refugee is about three different kids in three different time periods, however, they all have one thing in common, their home isn’t safe anymore and they must leave it. Josef is a Jewish boy born in Germany, escaping the Nazis in the 30s. Isabel is living in Communist Cuba during the 90s, looking to escape the riots and her family is trying to get to America. And Mahmoud, a Syrian boy living in a country being destroyed by war is struggling to travel to safety with his family. Even though I read all three stories at the same time, they took place in different eras, and the author does an extremely good job of connecting the stories (read it to find out how) and this connection is purposeful: the author is letting the reader know that these stories exist in every generation. While reading this book, I became connected to the characters. Since Josef is Jewish I can picture him as a member of my own family during that era. I can also connect to Mahmoud because he is living in modern times, in a modern city like me but his city is being destroyed. Although I didn’t connect to Isabel’s story as much, I still found it very interesting. Shortly after reading this book I read about a swimmer on the Refugee Olympic Team. She had a story that was similar to Mahmoud’s. She had to swim for three hours in freezing cold water, and was able to save 20 people. This made the book very real to me. Unlike the last book I read, I really enjoyed Refugee. It was truly a page turner. I think it’s really important for Ramaz students to read this book because we have been learning a lot about the Holocaust in history. The Holocaust was in the past but we need to remember that many people today need to escape the only place they know because it’s not safe due to gang violence, poor governance or more. After reading this book I feel so lucky to have been born in America where Jews and non-Jews have equal rights, where we have a democracy, and where I do not live in fear of imminent violence. Refugee by Alan Gratz. Scholastic Press, 2017. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
Amplifying Voices with Another Kind of Girl Collective
By Sabrina Guo, 13 As the world grows more connected – through displaced populations, the internet, and accessible travel – we need to find ways of adapting positively and supportively to these new circumstances. Laura Doggett and her organization, Another Kind of Girl Collective, which promotes the films and photography of Syrian refugee girls living in Jordan, are wonderful examples of this. While speaking to Laura on Skype and email over several months, I was struck by her devotion to helping these young women tell their unique stories to the rest of the world. I also spoke to two girls in the camps, Khaldiya Jibawi and Marah Al Hassan, over Skype with the help of Tasneem Toghoj, the co-facilitator of the collective, who also acted as our translator. I was struck by their bravery and determination to make something out of their circumstances and lives. Through speaking with them, I began to see the importance of storytelling as a way of connecting and forming bonds with others, something that is especially important and relevant in today’s world. I wanted to reflect this in my own work, so I decided to write this piece to show an example of people from different cultures coming together to talk, bond, and work together. ********************************************************************************* Amplifying Voices with Another Kind of Girl Collective The film shows a crowd of corrugated metal buildings. Between them, children play. Scrap metal and pieces of wood are scattered on the ground, along with hammers, saws, rope. When the sun sets, the sky turns a deep pink and orange, and the buildings are illuminated, flashing red and burnt sienna. At a distance, there is a young girl, maybe four or five years old, wearing a dress decorated with a fabric daisy. She has on one purple shoe and one black sandal. Next to her, older children are playing around; with linked hands, they have formed a circle. The little girl is upset because she isn’t being included. She throws her hands in the air, but when a boy gestures her to join, she runs away, angry. Next, the film shows a boy is using a long length of rope as a whip to thrash a puddle of muddy water. The camera transitions to another little boy who is hammering a metal stake into the hard ground with a saw next to him. There is no soundtrack or dialogue, just the sound of the children’s voices from afar. The sun hangs low in the sky. This film, Children, was made by Marah Al Hassan, a young Syrian refugee who lives in Za’atari, the largest refugee camp in Jordan, which is twelve miles over the Syrian border and home to 80,000 people. Marah came to film by way of the Another Kind of Girl Collective (AKOGC), an organization that holds photography and film workshops across Jordan for Syrian refugee girls. The aim of AKOGC and of its founder, Laura Doggett, is to give the girls the needed space, training, and equipment to develop this art form, along with providing a platform for them to share their own stories and experiences. Through their films and photographs, the girls prove themselves to not be passive and tragic beings, which is sometimes how the media portrays them, but hardworking, creative, smart, and motivated visionaries. According to a 2016 United Nations report, at least 5 million people have had to leave their homes in Syria and settle, at least temporarily, elsewhere in other countries, from Turkey to Sweden. Laura Doggett first started working with Syrian refugees and founded the Another Kind of Girl Collective in Za’atari in 2014. Although thousands of journalists have interviewed refugees in the camp, the stories have often given incomplete or inaccurate portrayals of life in the camps. Laura recognized the need to provide girls in the camps with the necessary equipment and encouragement to document the true stories of their lives, along with a way to connect with others, both in and out of their community. Laura states that her ultimate goal for the collective is to help get the girls started by giving them a direction so they can “use the medium and to learn how to use visual language to be able to express what’s inside of them. A lot of people in general, especially in more traumatic situations, don’t have the words to talk about what’s going on for them. Giving them a visual tool encourages them to learn how to use that tool to say different things about their lives and to reflect on their own stories in a way that they probably hadn’t before.” Laura credits her father, a master storyteller, with helping her find her love of stories. As she grew up, she also read and drew inspiration from authors like Eudora Welty, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American short story writer and novelist. She recognized the importance of observation and of storytelling and earned her BA in English and Creative Writing. After college, Laura directed a program called the Appalachian Media Institute in Kentucky, teaching young adults how to make documentaries about their communities. She taught photography and creative writing at High Rocks, an organization in West Virginia that promotes girls’ leadership, confidence, and artistic expression. She has also helped teenagers in the inner cities of NYC and DC to share their worlds through making their own documentaries about their lives. Later, she received her MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University to better learn how to collaborate with young people and reflect their artistic voices and vision more accurately. These days, Laura spends much of her time in Jordan in Za’atari, holding workshops and providing guidance to the young women there. When I asked her how she first connected with the girls in the workshops, since they were from such seemingly different worlds, she said, “We must understand they’re like teenage girls from everywhere else, and so we talk about love, friends, or parents. That’s why they want to be recognized
