DoBeDo Projects Starts Fundraiser For Turkey-Syria-Based Organisation Sirkhane Darkroom

The scale of disaster caused by the earthquake that shook the Turkey-Syria border to its core last month is nearly impossible to quantify, with so many factors leading to 20-odd thousand people homeless and double that number dead. If we can be sure of one thing, the true impact won't be known for decades: a horrifying reality at the front of an all-too-real crisis. When you consider the bleakness of the scenario, supporting Syrian photographer Serbest Salih's Sirkhane Mobile Darkroom project is more necessary than ever.

Believing creativity can help people find solace and healing is the nonprofit organisation Sirkhane Mobile Darkroom, a project that works with children across Syria, Turkey and Iraq who have witnessed violence, poverty and war. Through the project, children learn the fundamentals of photography, from how to develop original ideas to seeing their vision come to life with the help of expressing themselves through the medium, then later, even developing their own photographs.

Understanding the importance of the Sirkhane Darkroom project, DoBeDo Projects has organised a special fundraiser in support of the organisation, calling 'an urgent appeal to all that believe that photography can be a fun, engaging and therapeutic medium for children to interact with new surroundings and people'. Responding to the earthquake, Salih is moving the darkroom to Adıyaman and Kahramanmaraş, two of the affected earthquake zones and travelling to different locations every week to host workshops for displaced children in these areas. However, they need funding to do this. The money raised will go towards buying the materials, such as film and cameras needed for the workshops, while also contributing to the more logistical expenses of fuel and car rentals, which allow Salih to travel to affected zones across the country.