Success Stories
Aras AL-Zaidy
My name is Aras, I’m 26-year-old and I’m from Iraq. I’ve been in Lebanon since 2007. I work as a cinematographer and theatre director. In 2009 I volunteered with AMEL Association as an animator with refugee children in 2009.
In 2012 I got to know AL-JANA through the “Janana Summer Encounter”, and I participated in many workshops, one of them being the filmmaking workshop, which was later screened at the AL-JANA’s short movies festival.
The Summer Encounter was a great opportunity for me to make many relationships, networking with other people and NGOs while sharing skills, information and experiences.
In 2015 I participated for the third time in the Janana Summer Encounter and joined the Building Puppets Workshop (The Magical World of the Inanimate) with the trainer Julia Yevnine. The workshop was so useful and I learned:
– How to make many kinds of puppets from paper and socks
– How to animate all types of puppets like hand puppets, sticks puppets…
– How to add soul to the inanimate through inspiration, voice, and seeing…
I was so excited to be in this workshop, it was incredibly mesmerizing and beneficial for me. I used the new skills I learnt in my work with refugee women. Each of them got to make their own puppet.
At the end of the project we organized a puppet show that was attended by many organizations and social institutions representatives.
The women were so excited to learn new skills and experiences to use them with their kids making their own toys.
Now I’m working with NGOs and organizing many workshops of puppet building and animation. For the future, I’m planning to make a street puppet show and organize free tours for the kids and provide the opportunity for them to watch the magical world of inanimate.
Fida’a Ayoub
I still remember the first time I volunteered with AL-JANA, it was during the War of 2006. I was 16 and searching for a place to help people. I came to Al-Madina Theater in Hamra and asked if I could volunteer there. They were very welcoming. At that time, AL-JANA held different workshops there, all aiming to give children psycho-social support. Some of them had lost their relatives – you can imagine how hard it was!
I joined the theater workshop, helping children and youth to express themselves through acting.
After the war, I was invited to participate in the fourth AL-JANA International Film Festival for Children and Youth and to be part of the selecting committee. We, the youth, were given the power to choose the films that would be screened, of course after empowering us with different tools during different workshops.
I remember sitting around the table, watching different movies from different cultures, while being ourselves young people from different regions and cultural backgrounds. It was an enriching experience!
After watching each film on the screen, we would discuss it and each one of us understood it in his/her way, sometimes we even had small fights because the voting for a specific film was not enough for it to move to the next phase! Beautiful Cultural Fights! I remember myself in that period, I was very shy and had low confidence in some areas. This project was my window to the world, it was an opportunity to see how other youth in different countries feel, think and react towards issues they encounter in their societies. It was a window outside of my comfort zone being motivated to take the microphone, going out onto the stage and talking to 300 audience members about the movies. I can still feel the fear! But I did it and it became one of the turning points in my life.
My journey with AL-JANA didn’t stop there, for after a while I participated in different projects, helping children and youth to speak their opinions and feelings, listening to them and encouraging them to speak their minds. Giving back the window that AL-JANA once gave me…
Hani Hammoud
Calligraphy was love at first sight,” Hani, who taught himself calligraphy from books at the age of 15, confessed. “It was first sparked from observing a commercial calligrapher in the camp.”
In the early 90s, he started teaching at AL-JANA, which subsequently provided Hani with a scholarship to master calligraphy first in Lebanon and then in Turkey.
There, Hani met Ghassan Chalabi, the last surviving master of the Ottoman calligraphy school. He later returned to Turkey and stayed there for 10 years, becoming a master in Traditional Turkish Art.
After, the master calligrapher was back at AL-JANA to teach children his art once a week during the Friday Art Club. “It is an innate art form and it needs to be encouraged more,” Hani believes. “It teaches children to be observant, to develop harmony, discipline, precision and patience.”
The overall goals of the workshops were to gain a general knowledge of the traditional art of calligraphy, Islamic geometric design, marketing techniques, bookbinding, and Kufic script so that the children can create art and geometric designs with it. They will also get to learn how to design creatively using calligraphy, geometric designs and Kufic script to write and to design.
From the first exploratory class he held, Hani could tell who had the passion…
To Hani, calligraphy is a higher form of expression and a symbol of Islam, given its devotional nature.
“Calligraphy to me is a way of life, it’s a passion,” Hani underlines. He sleeps with a pen and ink next to his bed, wakes up to write a letter – and goes back to sleep.”
Hani had published seven calligraphy manuals for schools before moving to Turkey. He returned in 2007 and has been teaching at institutes, schools and universities since then. He also sells his original work.
Areej Khaddaj
It all started when I was 14 years old, when my school principal called me in to his office, and informed me that I was selected, with two of my friends, to represent our school (Tanoukhieh National School – Abey) in a project led by the Goethe Institute in Lebanon, and that included four other Lebanese schools. The project was to produce a short documentary film about a specific type of discrimination in Lebanon, under the supervision of a professional director… and that’s when I was introduced to Director Hicham Kayed in 2003.
From a student who knew nothing about film-making and never stood behind a video camera, I grew into a humble co-director of a documentary film who stood in front of the audience presenting his film at the Zoom to Europe Youth Film Festival in Hungary.
This evolution wouldn’t have happened without the immense contribution of AL-JANA and all its taskforce, where I gained lots of knowledge, experience, and exposure in different aspects.
When it comes to the technical expertise related to filmmaking, Hicham made the greatest contribution; he taught me the skills of shooting, lighting, editing, and creating the scenes. He also introduced to me all the related equipment that was readily available at AL-JANA, and I could have hands-on sessions. He was always there to correct my mistakes, show me alternatives, and provide me with advice and constructive feedback. Finally, after months of learning and applying, we finally produced the 15-minute film “When they Speak Politics”.
During all the time spent at AL-JANA, I got exposed to all the activities and projects the center handled, the main one being the AL-JANA Youth Film Festival. I got myself involved with the working group and this was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. There were lots of preparations and activities, that each provided me with unique added value. I learned and practiced how to undergo fruitful discussions and carry out teamwork with individuals of different ages, cultural backgrounds, and expertise levels. AL-JANA’s culture fostered collaboration, and hence we managed to create a strong bond between all of us, especially that we were all working for a common objective: having a successful and decent film festival.
At AL-JANA, we, as youth, were given a major and decisive role in the process of selecting the films that would be screened in the festival out of hundreds of applying films. The selection process was very professional, whereby for each film, each of the group members wrote his/her notes while the film was screened. Then all those notes were discussed and the details of the movie were analyzed. Afterwards a final decision was reached whether to include the film or not, by voting, if no consensus was reached. This process helped me cultivate many important skills, among which were respecting others’ point of views, negotiation and convincing skills, evidence-based reasoning, and practicing democracy in taking decisions.
Moreover, we were given the chance to write critiques on some films that we liked/disliked, with the guidance of AL-JANA’s seniors. This helped me consolidate my writing skills and critical thinking. It also raised my self-esteem knowing that those critiques were to be published in the festival’s magazine that is read by all the attendees, and more importantly professional directors, producers, and critics.
Finally, I have to say that my activity with AL-JANA was one of my best experiences, and I used to be so enthusiastic about it that I used to spend hours of my after-school days and weekends at AL-JANA, and didn’t care about the 1-hour public-transportation journey from my home to reach the center!
A final word: I’m thankful to AL-JANA, and Hicham Kayed in particular, for all the opportunities and expertise they provided me with. And I wish AL-JANA the best of progress, success, and achievements.
I don’t work in this field and I since have become interested in many other interests and activities, mainly Photography. It is close to cinema in some way or another.
I graduated as Electrical and Computer Engineer in 2010, and have been working since then as a Quality Control Engineer at Murex Systems, Beirut.
Areej I. Khaddaj
7 October 2016
Hana Chamoun
I’ve been involved with AL-JANA ever since I can remember. I have so many childhood memories set in the center in Beirut and in Moa’taz’ mountain house, where we used to gather for activities. As a kid, there was always a magical atmosphere about those gatherings. Sitting in a circle playing instruments, singing, painting, dancing and playing games…
When I got a little older, my sister and I joined the jury for the children’s film festival, two years in a row. I met some great people and learnt a lot from that experience. Some summers I went to the Janana summer camp in Brummana High School. I experienced the camp every year I was helping out with the organization and the last and most recent year I took a wonderful Theater of the Oppressed workshop with Egyptian director Noura Amin. We did some beautiful work with Noura, and after the camp was over we decided to form the first Theater of the Oppressed troop in Lebanon. We have performed on the streets of Beirut and in refugee camps around Lebanon. I was also involved one summer in a mural painting project in the Burj al Shamali camp in south Lebanon.
I’ve been involved with AL-JANA ever since I can remember. I have so many childhood memories set in the center in Beirut and in Moa’taz’ mountain house, where we used to gather for activities. As a kid, there was always a magical atmosphere about those gatherings. Sitting in a circle playing instruments, singing, painting, dancing and playing games…
When I got a little older, my sister and I joined the jury for the children’s film festival, two years in a row. I met some great people and learnt a lot from that experience. Some summers I went to the Janana summer camp in Brummana High School. I experienced the camp every year I was helping out with the organization and the last and most recent year I took a wonderful Theater of the Oppressed workshop with Egyptian director Noura Amin. We did some beautiful work with Noura, and after the camp was over we decided to form the first Theater of the Oppressed troop in Lebanon. We have performed on the streets of Beirut and in refugee camps around Lebanon. I was also involved one summer in a mural painting project in the Burj al Shamali camp in south Lebanon.