Thiva, March 8 (BUS): In a small classroom in a Greek migrant camp, 18-year-old Roya Rasouli teaches a rowdy group of young girls how to draw. For Rasooli, it is also a lesson in women’s empowerment.
“What is your message to women, to girls?” Rasouli, who was born in Iran to Afghan parents, asks her students.
“Be strong!” One of the girls screams.
Hanging on the blue wall behind are some of Rasouli’s artwork, including the green-eyed “Afghan Girl” whose famous 1985 National Geographic photograph of her wearing a red veil became a symbol of the Afghanistan wars. The apostolic painted it without a mouth.
Rasouli did not pick up a paintbrush before arriving in Greece three years ago, but she has since taught herself to paint, Reuters reports.
She lives with about 500 asylum seekers – mostly Afghans – in the Theva camp, one of dozens that have been established across Greece since the migration crisis in Europe in 2015, when nearly a million refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty arrived on the continent via Greece. .
She leaves camp at 5 a.m. on a one-and-a-half hour bus ride to the Athens School of Fine Arts for the class, where she hopes to receive a scholarship to study full time.
“When I begin to paint, it is as if I am traveling in another world, in another peaceful place,” said Rasouli, who taught herself English.
One of her other paintings, in the style of Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, shows a woman in the traditional Afghan burqa playing the guitar.
She said, “I wanted to show that they can be whatever they want… They are free to do anything, believe in their strength and what they like to do. It’s good to be themselves, and it is good to talk.”
Rasouli, whose class meets in Theva camp in central Greece every week thanks to a UNICEF-funded program now run by Greek charity Solidarity, says she hopes to inspire other girls to achieve their goals.
“You changed my life with my hopes and dreams,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to show them that they can do whatever they want, to be free.”
HF