When Jamil first arrived in Istanbul in 2014, everything was new, different and intimidating. As a fourteen-year-old, it was a struggle to adjust and find ways to connect with people, so he spent a lot of time alone and in his room. His family worried, but weren’t sure how to help their homesick teenager. Back in Aleppo, Jamil was outgoing and had a large social circle, including extended family and his school friends. When the conflict broke out, the family feared for their safety, so fleeing to Istanbul and leaving everything behind seemed like one of few reasonable options they had left.
In 2015, the IBC Community Centre funded by IOM opened near Jamil’s house. His mother managed to encourage Jamil to give it a try. The Centre offers a range of activities for refugees and locals including handcrafts, cultural visits, theatre activities and art classes. One day, Jamil tried out the art class and began drawing. He’d never really spent much time on art before, but at the end of the session he didn’t want to leave. He grabbed brush after brush and pencil after pencil to finish his pieces. For the first time for as long as he could remember, he wasn’t thinking of anything else apart from the piece of paper he had in front of him and how he could add more shading, more colour and more brush strokes. He found people in his art class that he could talk to and a shared interest to bond over. He became more outgoing and confident as people admired his work and he had found something that helped him relate to his new city. “I feel happy when I draw”, he said. “I just enjoy drawing lines and shadows and putting a picture together. It relaxes me and makes me feel happy”. Jamil talks about being an Architect in the future and of turning his passion into a career.