It has been in the news for months now. The mainstream media coverage of all the immigrants looking for refuge and the great dispute they face at being rejected by a country. All the stories just get a few minutes on the news. That's not enough to cover what is really happening and how these humans are suffering.
To understand their reality we need to take a closer look at their thoughts and feelings. Luckily the great Brandon Stanton understands the importance of this being shared. On his blog, Humans Of New York, he has been lately giving us an insight of these humans, rated often by the media as just immigrants. Not only is important to know what is going on with the humans of the world. But this stories will change the perspective of your world and the things that really matter.
Capturing deepest emotions with a photograph and a short quote Stanton give us the opportunity to take a closer look.
“Everyone here has been very nice to us. When we got to the beach, there were people there who gave us food and a hug. A priest even gave us this carpet to pray on. He told us: ‘We have the same God.’” (Lesvos, Greece)
“I wish I could have done more for her. Her life has been nothing but struggle. She hasn’t known many happy moments. She never had a chance to taste childhood. When we were getting on the plastic boat, I heard her say something that broke my heart. She saw her mother being crushed by the crowd, and she screamed: 'Please don't kill my mother! Kill me instead!'" (Lesvos, Greece)
“My father was a farmer and we had eight siblings. I went to Australia when I was fifteen because my family didn’t have enough to eat. I was on a boat for forty days. When I got there, I couldn’t find a job, I couldn’t speak English, and I had to sleep on the street. I know what it’s like. So everyday I drive the van to the port and hand out bread to the refugees. My son is my business partner. He says, ‘Baba, please. It’s fine to help. But not every day.’ But I still go every day because I know what it feels like to have nothing.” (Kos, Greece)
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"The extent to which refugee children have been conditioned by their environment is heartbreaking. We wanted permission to take this young girl’s photograph, so we asked if her mother was nearby. Her eyes filled with the most uncontrollable fear that I’ve ever seen in a child. ‘Why do you want my mother?’ she asked. Later, her parents told us how the family had crouched in the woods while soldiers ransacked their house in Syria. More recently they’d been chased through the woods by Turkish police. After we’d spent a few minutes talking with her parents, she returned to being a child and could not stop hugging us, and laughing, and saying ‘I love you so much.’ But I went to sleep that night remembering the terror on her face when we first asked to speak to her mother." (Lesvos, Greece) |
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| “I used to work as civil engineer in Nepal. I worked on government projects: bridges, roads, things like that. But I was sitting in my office one day in 2004, watching television coverage of the tsunami that hit Indonesia, and I realized that government work was not the best use of my abilities. So I joined the UN and helped build 380 schools in Indonesia. Then when the earthquake hit Haiti, I moved there and began building shelters. Any engineer could do this work. But there just weren’t many available. So all I did was make myself available. Now I’m working with the UNHCR to construct camps for refugees. The first priorities are basics: shelter, health, food, water, and toilet access. My next priority is to respect the dignity of the refugees. When they arrive, they are very anxious, so I want to make sure they feel like they have a place. We leave four meters of space between every tent. We also leave the camp open so they can enter and leave whenever they like. And I added this cover over the entry way, because I wanted to be sure they were shaded the moment they walk in.” (Lesvos, Greece) |
