Bhutanese Refugees — Tiffany Fairey

Participants outside the project buildings (office, workshop space, darkroom and studio), 2007

Playing happily on a swing

Here I am a refugee but I do not want refuge. I want the wings to fly. (c) Aita Maya / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

Aite Maya with her photograph, Kathmandu exhibition 2002

Puff of wind

He is a 97 year old man who lives in the camp. He thinks life is like smoke that a puff of wind can disperse. He is a pessimist. He says in Bhutan he was very rich and that he came to Nepal with only the clothes that he was wearing. Now he is poor. His clothes, plates and pots are given by UNHCR. He complains that he will die without seeing his country again. Myself and others tell him that is not the way to think, that our problems will soon be solved. (c) Yethi Raj / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

Here my brother is holding a map of our country Bhutan. Bhutan is called Druk Yuk, The Land of the Thunder Dragon. Though we are away from our country an unforgettable picture of Bhutan is printed in every Bhutanese heart. We felt very sad to leave Bhutan behind but our parents had to leave to survive. (c) Nar Bdr / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

Carrying rations back to the hut. (c) Aite Maya / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

I took this photo nearby my hut. Refugee huts are arranged in lines and are made out of bamboo and plastic. I have spent 8 years of my life living in camp and I do not know how many more years we will spend here. In Bhutan now our village has become a forest. We are becoming adults but have only distant dreams of our country. (c) Pasang / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

He is my brother. He is studying in Class VIII. He wakes up early in the morning because his examination is coming very near. He sits on the bed and keeping his books on the table, he starts reading. He is naked because he has just woken up, lit the lantern and started studying. (c) Yamuna / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

In the camp small children do not know anything because we are not able to show and teach them practical things. If we ask the children who are born in the camps in Nepal, ‘Where do we get milk from?’, they will say we get milk from a bicycle. They say this because they see milk being carried to the huts on a bicycle. (c) Yethi Raj / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

Hidden Style

This photo denotes the hidden style of Bhutanese boys. They are people that possess wonderful skills but being refugees they are unable to fulfill their potential. They are very strong friends and united even though they fall into different castes. (c) Nar Bdr / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

The watertaps near my hut

This is the water tap near my hut. In camp we are given the things we need. We are lucky to get an opportunity to study but we are not happy to spend our lives as refugees because we are not free. Thousands of drops of water when added together make an ocean. Like that we must share our good ideas with each together to find a solution to our problems. (c) Madan / Rose Class / PhotoVoice

Photography workshop, 2007

Photography Self-Learning Centre, Beldangi refugee camp, Nepal 2007

Project participants receiving vocational training in a local photographer's studio.

Project participants at an exhibition in Kathmandu. 2002.

Bhutanese refugee youth

"This project is the first chance we have been given to express things we keep inside to the outside world. 'Refugee' is not a good title to have but even though I am a refugee I will not stop my perseverance. By doing good work our bad name will become respected."

Aita Singh, 18 years

Improbably, the isolated Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan has generated one of the highest numbers of refugees in the world as a proportion of its population. One sixth of Bhutan's peoples sought asylum in neighbouring Nepal in the early 1990s when popular demonstrations and a change in citizenship laws led to the expulsion of large numbers of ethnically Nepali Bhutanese from their homes by government authorities. From 1991, seven refugee camps in the eastern lowlands of Nepal were home to a population of over 105,000 Bhutanese refugees.

Initiated in 1998, the Rose Class project (which was subsequently incorporated into the Bhutanese Refugee Children’s Forum) ran photography and writing workshops with 13 young people living in the camps. The project aimed to provide a platform for these young people to communicate their stories of growing up as refugees. The young people went on to set up a youth newspaper and over the years the project expanded to work with thousands of young people running photography and art workshops, holding exhibitions, opening a photographic centre in the camps and managing a photography vocational training programme. The Photo Centre housed a community photo library, a darkroom and a studio that aimed to support the young people to run a photographic business and generate a sustainable income stream for the project.

Work from the project was used to create the advocacy website: www.bhutaneserefugees.com . The young people's images have been exhibited around the world including in Kathmandu, London, Paris and New York. The project has received significant press attention; coverage has included National Geographic TV chanel, The Observer, BBC online and Radio Nepal.

After 10 years, in 2008 the project in the refugee camps came to an end as a re-settlement programme saw Bhutanese refugees re-locatedto start new lives in America, Australia and Europe. bhutanesesrefugees.com continues to tell the stories of re-settlement.

The project was initiated by myself, as an undergraduate student, and run collaboratively with a small group of young people and project advisors. It became one of PhotoVoice’s founding projects and from 2002 was run in partnership with The Lutheran World Federation, who one of the main implementing partners in the Bhutanese refugee camps. From 2003-07 the project was funded by Comic Relief. Other project partners have included The UK Bhutanese Refugee Support Group and Save the Children Nepal.

BhutaneseRefugees.com

Voices With Vision photo booklet

National Geographic short on the project