SMART art provides the opportunity for Syrian refugee youth and Turkish youth to work together in a creative way. Through using art as a means of expression, youth learn to work together and understand their different cultures. This pilot project has been so successful in the last year that beneficiaries from the project will go on to be facilitators in the coming year. This project builds pride, mutual understanding and creative skills through bright thematic murals in public spaces.
Syrian refugee youth living in the town of Gaziantep have faced significant disruptions to their lives and are no longer able to attend school due to language problems and economic challenges. They find it difficult to integrate into the Turkish community. In turn Turkish youth are confined by societal gender norms.
This project brings refugee and local youth together to express their feelings through painting which surmounts language. Youth will learn life skills as well as painting lessons and drama classes, as they learn to trust each other. Beneficiaries from the project during the last year have shown great potential and will be able to facilitate the project going forward creating sustainability and developing community leaders.
Approximately 2000 young people have the chance of a brighter future. This in turn indirectly benefits more than 50,000 as the programme creates stronger communities. The project allows people to rise above the problems of displacement and create cohesive productive communities. The stronger community will thus produce greater economic impact.
