BEIRUT: A series of paintings by Syrian and Lebanese children line one of the lanes in Beirut’s marketplace. The paintings vary in size, style and quality, but all are part of The Butterfly Project, which aims to promote peace through art.
The project emerged as a result of the ongoing conflict in Syria in order — its press office states — to “cast light on one of the major challenges the region faces today: Forced displacement. As refugees face great suffering, host communities face the challenge of absorbing the sudden flow of arrivals.”
In Lebanon, around 30 percent of the population are Syrian refugees, and half of those are children. Their arrival in Lebanon has been met with resentment in some quarters and The Butterfly Project is partly an attempt to address that.
The art initiative involved 500 children from 22 schools around Lebanon, and more than 130 art workshops.
Those workshops, according to the project’s organizers, were “a tool to alleviate tension in different communities and promoted the a culture of peace and mutual understanding between Syrian and Lebanese children.”
Many of the paintings depicted the children’s homes — reflecting both happy memories and the pain of homesickness. Others were of the UN tents in which Syrian refugees live in the north of Lebanon.
Some paintings were of flowers, or cats and others showed skies full of stars, clouds, birds or the moon — observations of children who have been sleeping and playing outdoors for the past six years or more.
The Butterfly Project also included paintings done by older children based on stories from both Lebanese and Syrian kids. One of them — “My Grandfather’s Love” — told of a Syrian man who fell in love with a Lebanese girl whom he married against his family’s wishes, and who later became “the beloved Lebanese” to his family.
In “One Who Longs to Return” the writer describes how “Our homeland turned into hell. The sound of bullets overwhelmed the singing of birds. Murder silenced the sound of the flute. I remember a tree that I long to go back and hug, because it gives me hope of a new birth for our homeland.”
Syrian children ‘spread peace through art’ in Beirut
Syrian children ‘spread peace through art’ in Beirut
