Douglas Herman and Sonia Nandzik met along the Serbian-Hungarian border in 2016. He was working as a journalist following the path refugees were taking through The Balkans, and she was part of a network of humanitarians providing live-saving aid for those stuck at the border.
Together they went to LesVos in 2017 in response to the influx of refugees on the Greek islands. What they found there was a total lack of educational opportunities for people now stuck in the camps waiting for asylum, some for up to 4-5 years. Almost immediately they started a pilot photography workshop at One Happy Family Community Center. Based off the high demand and success of the workshops, they quickly decided to create a professional organization and open the first real Media Lab on the island.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
In 2018 we established The first ReFOCUS Media Lab inside One Happy Family Community Center on Lesvos, Greece. We came back to this island, where we taught photography and started our refugee storytelling project in 2017, because the island continued to host over 20,000 asylum seekers with more arriving every day. This community center was built with and for asylum seekers, and it has been a dream to help this community continue to thrive.
SIX years on, Lesvos remains one of the most important asylum seeking hubs in Europe. Most people trying to cross from Turkey to the European Union arrive on this island. While numbers on Lesvos are deceptively low due to deliberate and illegal pushbacks, WE currently see increases in new arrivals since the Summer started, and the community here is already bracing for a third winter in a “temporary” camp in mavrovouni.
OUR JOURNEY
We're DEDICATED TO PROVIDING asylum seekers with A PLATFORM to tell their stories and ensure they can develop marketable skills to pursue real careers and the futures they desire. BUT IT IS ALSO ABOUT DESPERATELY NEEDED PSYCHO-SOCIAL SUPPORT, CULTURAL EXCHANGE, GENDER EQUALITY, EDUCATION AND INTEGRATION. EVERY SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY THROUGHOUT HISTORY ENSURES THESE FLOURISH, AND SO DO WE.
Since STARTING REFOCUS, WE HAVE grOwN significantly AND CERTIFIED nine graduating CLASSES OF STUDENTS, OPENED UP a second lab in Athens and a third in cracow AS the war in ukraine started a new massive refugee crisis in poland. meanwhile, our programming on lesvos continues with our 10th class of photo and video training led by refocus alumni and guest international media creators and educators.
OUR Core mission has always been to help OUR STUDENTS develop skills, portfolios, producE original content AND GAIN THE EXPERIENCE AND CONFIDENCE NECESSARY TO PURSUE CAREERS. exhibiting their photography, films and producing feature-length professional documentaries continue to serve as proof of mission, and our work has truly gone global with festivals and have been held in Greece, Poland, THE NETHERLANDS, BELGIUM and the united states.
THE PAST Three YEARS has been A TIME OF EXTREME ACTIVITY FOR REFOCUS with NEW feature FILMS, original music videos, MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITIONs, international film festivals, and scores of new certified students. 2022 was a year of expansion and even bigger plans to fully develop our international network of media creation Labs. we’re proud to declare new labs in Athens, KraKow are in full action!
THE FUTURE
BEFORE 2022 we were still an all-volunteer organization, and now we’re providing living wages for FOURTEEN staff across multiple countries. With these increased costs and fundraising needs also come a need for more capacity building, network-wide communication strategies, streamlining our programming and refining our teacher training to ensure our model can be replicated wherever we identify communities for further expansion.
We’re excited about these next steps, new projects we’ve been dreaming up, new communities we’ve activated, and actualising our plans to further develop a truly international community of creators.
