Livre - One day we had to run !

This book highlights the stories of three children coming from Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia (said to form the Horn of Africa). The first few sections of the book provides a comprehensive context of the chronology of events that happened from 1956-1993 which caused upheavals, famine, mass migration (forced relocation, displacement, or traveling across borders for survival), and destruction in Africa. People tend to get desensitized by huge amounts of numbers, nameless and faceless statistics that mean very little to most people in their sheltered little bubbles. What this book tries to do is humanize the experiences that children go through under these conditions – with paintings that they have created themselves, their translated narratives, the heartbreaking photographs taken around various refugee camps. Sybella Wilkes explained that while she was compiling these paintings and the children’s narratives, she encountered a great deal of resistance as the children did not care very much about her questions and were reluctant to relive their harrowing experiences with a stranger. She soon discovered that they could communicate better through colours, paints, and brushstrokes. There was a particular breakthrough when she shared her intentions behind this book: