Children of Conscience, West Bank and Gaza (PP)
Project manager: Nadja Groux, USA
Project title: Children of Conscience
Photography by young Palestinian refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza
"Posters showing the portrait of 17 year old Marud, who was found dead after being tortured by Israeli soldiers. These portraits are placed on the walls of his classroom by his school desk and on the chair where he used to seat."
Ramallah, May 2002 Photo by 15 year old Mizer.
Children of Conscience
Nadja Groux is writing her PhD in Social Anthropology for Cambridge University, UK and is working as a freelance photographer.
She was on assignment in Palestine in May documenting the destruction caused by the Israeli incursions, the consequences of the March/April 24-hour curfews on people in the West Bank and the work of Medecins Sans Frontieres in Gaza.
On the side she began a personal project involving children as photographers and focusing on Palestinian daily life. Children of Ramallah (West Bank), the Deishah camp (near Bethlehem, West Bank) and the Rafah camp (South of the Gaza strip) have participated in the photo project and have documented the circumstances of their daily life under the occupation. They have produced photos as well as written testimonies mainly focusing on the curfew that occurred in March/April during which they were confined at home for a period from three weeks to 42 days.
The project has been shown at the UN during a symposium on Palestine (September 2002), at the Jerusalem Fund in Washington (November 2002), at Bard College in Virginia (April 2003) and at the Gethsemane Church (June 2003) in Brooklyn. It is also available for consultation at the UN photo library in New York.
The aim of this project is to give a human face to Palestinian people, to raise awareness of the unfair and under-reported conditions in which Palestinians live and of the consequences of the curfews on children. The use of collective punishment by the occupying power, in this case the imposition of prolonged and wide-spanning curfews, is prohibited and illegal according to article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Nadja Groux believes that art can be a tool for peaceful resistance and a mode of social intervention as well as a mode of communication. The goal of the workshops is to give children the opportunity to express themselves in a peaceful way. They are also a way to bring their own contribution to the building of a collective memory in a context where data (hard drive, archives, statistics and family photo albums) are systematically destroyed by the IDF. This work is ongoing and should become, once displayed on a website, a community based youth generated media/news project. Video training should also be made available to the children.
Manal Issa from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre helped Nadja to meet the children and their family in Ramallah and collected and translated their written testimonies. In the Deishah camp, Jehad Abbas from the Ibdaa Cultural Centre helped Nadja to meet the children of this camp while George Rishmawi from the Rapprochement Centre in Beith Sahour helped her to establish contact with kids from the Lutheran School there. In Gaza, Fatema Al Kahatib (General Union of Palestinian Women) and Taghrib Aboudharifa, a TV journalist, helped her to meet some families of the Rafah camp (Brazil). She is very grateful to all of them for their help. Without it this work could not have been realised.
To find out more information please contact: nadjagroux@hotmail.com