Ahmad, 40 and his family.
With the lights brightening on stage, Ahmad’s voice emerges from the edge of the darkened auditorium, his deep, formidable melisma filling the space. “Paradise …. paradise …. paradise. Syria is our homeland. Our homeland is our love.”
A lead singer in the refugee choir, Ahmad is fiercely protective of its message of peace. “I hope it comes across,” he says. “I just want Syria to be one family. I want people to understand that religion shouldn’t be dividing people. Religion should be about love, forgiveness, embracing each other. We are one family, and one heart.”
Ahmad’s new life in Germany was long awaited. When tanks arrived in his village in 2012, firing on houses and killing neighbours, his children had been too young to understand what was happening. “I didn’t care what happened to me. But watching over your family close to danger, hoping you don’t lose them – this is unbearable.” Fleeing to Lebanon, he immediately applied to the UN for resettlement. Two years later, the phone call came. “We lost our Syrian homeland,” he muses, “so maybe Germany will be our second homeland.”
Now with his children flourishing in German schools and a new programming job with which he can support them, he shields them from the horrors of Syria’s present so that they may enjoy their childhoods. “That’s what I find hardest about the war,” he says. “I don’t care about the politics. I care about the kids, about the students who can’t go to school. We have to protect our children. They are our future.”
(words by Katie Welsford and Emma Pearson)
Writing: I am Amira. I’m eight. This is my family
Germany, 2015
With the lights brightening on stage, Ahmad’s voice emerges from the edge of the darkened auditorium, his deep, formidable melisma filling the space. “Paradise …. paradise …. paradise. Syria is our homeland. Our homeland is our love.”
A lead singer in the refugee choir, Ahmad is fiercely protective of its message of peace. “I hope it comes across,” he says. “I just want Syria to be one family. I want people to understand that religion shouldn’t be dividing people. Religion should be about love, forgiveness, embracing each other. We are one family, and one heart.”
Ahmad’s new life in Germany was long awaited. When tanks arrived in his village in 2012, firing on houses and killing neighbours, his children had been too young to understand what was happening. “I didn’t care what happened to me. But watching over your family close to danger, hoping you don’t lose them – this is unbearable.” Fleeing to Lebanon, he immediately applied to the UN for resettlement. Two years later, the phone call came. “We lost our Syrian homeland,” he muses, “so maybe Germany will be our second homeland.”
Now with his children flourishing in German schools and a new programming job with which he can support them, he shields them from the horrors of Syria’s present so that they may enjoy their childhoods. “That’s what I find hardest about the war,” he says. “I don’t care about the politics. I care about the kids, about the students who can’t go to school. We have to protect our children. They are our future.”
(words by Katie Welsford and Emma Pearson)
Writing: I am Amira. I’m eight. This is my family
Germany, 2015