How we Explored The Refugee Issue With Some New Friends

On our first meeting with Abdul, we sat cross-legged with grass as our carpet in a local tea farm near Bogor. A soft-spoken young man, Abdul started to recount his journey away from a country he used to call home, to another he’d spend the next several years in, worlds apart from what he knew. By then, narratives on the refugee issue have been quite diverse and established, at least globally; there we were, two people living barely over 50 Km away from a refugee and asylum seeker community, completely clueless about their existence.

Abdullah Sarwari and his enchanting smile.

Over the next several months, we’d come back to meet more and more people within the community and had the privilege to learn about a learning center the refugee community is running to educate their children. The center — dubbed the Refugee Learning Center (RLC) — is a learning and community center run by refugees for refugees. The next year, we had the opportunity to work together with Our Better World foundation to tell their story.

Alongside Our Better World, we explored the reason behind why some of the refugees decided to leave their countries, and how RLC supports them in an alien country. The project had a goal — supporting RLC in their sustainability beyond monetary support. Over several months, we had conversations with several refugees in Refugee Learning Center, collecting personal narrative to understand the bigger picture.

For the story, we had a chat with Mr. Akbari, a father of two, and RLC’s finance manager. Mr. Akbari — another soft-spoken man who spoke mainly in Hazaragi — started to recount his experience of having to tell his children why their school principal kicked them before telling them to “go back to your country.” That was when Mr. Akbari decided that he didn’t want his children to grow up devoid of rights much like himself. He decided to leave the country.

The project is now a part of Our Better World’s campaign to raise awareness on the refugee issue and supporting local initiatives through storytelling and exposure. You can also check out the video here.

Abdullah Sarwari is a refugee currently residing in Indonesia. He also contributes to news journals such as Thomson Reuters; you can check one of his articles here.

NYRA studio is a creative production company crafting engaging and meaningful visual stories for brands and companies through video, film, and photography. You can follow us at our Instagram here.

Adhytia Putra is the photographer and creative lead of NYRA studio. You can stalk his antics in his Instagram here.