"I am a Rohingya" photo exhibition; Credit: Véronique Barbieux / Friendship Luxembourg

Friendship Luxembourg, an NGO founded in 2006 to support humanitarian projects in Bangladesh, has organised several events aimed at highlighting the Rohingya refugee crisis.

Last Thursday, the opening of the photo exhibition entitled "I am a Rohingya" at Galerie Clairefontaine met with great success. The evening marked the beginning of a series of events organised by Friendship Luxembourg two years after the start of the humanitarian disaster that saw nearly a million Rohingya forced to leave Myanmar to seek refuge in precarious camps in Bangladesh. In this context, a conference is being organised on Tuesday around the subject and a reading of Rohingya poems will take place on Wednesday.

The conference will look at how to "Restore dignity, maintain hope - How much can a humanitarian organisation do in this context?", taking place in English on Tuesday 12 November 2019 at 18:30 at the Auditorium of Banque de Luxembourg. Through a combination of testimonials, films, photos, poetry readings and a round table, the public will discover the variety and scale, but also the difficulties and limitations of the action of an organisation like Friendship in the refugee camps. More than 180 people are already registered for the conference, which will also be attended by Paulette Lenert, Minister of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Runa Khan, Founder and Executive Director of Friendship Bangladesh, Dominique Hansen, Director of Fondation EME, and Shehzar Doja, poet and publisher, as well as representatives of Caritas Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Red Cross.

Then, on Wednesday 13 November 2019, Friendship Luxembourg will hold a reading of Rohinya poems from 18:00-20:00, again at the Auditorium of Banque de Luxembourg. On this occasion, Shehzar Doja, co-editor of the poetry anthology "I am a Rohingya - Poetry from the Camps and Beyond", will give a reading, in English, of poems which are the product of a poetry workshop organised by Friendship in the camps at the beginning of year.

Finally, the photo exhibition "I am a Rohingya", which opened on 7 November 2019, will be on display at Galerie Clairefontaine (Espace 1) until 21 December 2019. This exhibition stands as a cry for every Rohingya who has taken refuge in the camps but whose future is currently not assured and the international community may forget with time passing. It features moving pictures from Eilo Elvinger and Wasama Doja.