Déplacé·e·s, Mauritania

Continuing the project started in Ukraine with five-year-old refugee Valeriia, JR and his team drove thirty-six hours across Mauritania to visit a remote refugee camp at the border of Mali in the Sahara. Over 70,000 people live in the Mbera camp, having fled their homes in Mali due to years of drought and social instability. Following the practice he began in Ukraine and then brought to Rwanda, JR printed the image of a refugee child named Jamal onto a 45-meter-long tarp. Children and adults gathered together to carry Jamal’s image into open desert land and laid it on the sand to bring attention to the refugee children worldwide. The children ran across the tarp, playing and sharing a joyful moment.  

Many of the children from the community also participated in an Inside Out Action. Ninety-six children expressed themselves in their own portraits and pasted them onto the walls of their camp. 

The final component of Déplacé·e·s, Mauritania was a picnic. Over one hundred children gathered around the eyes of Ajara, a young girl living in the Mbera camp, to share a meal and listen to music.