SIX BURMESE CHILDREN LEARNED PHOTOGRAPHY to document their lives as refugees living in Kuala Lumpur and recently presented their work in the exhibition, Everyone Has Hope, held earlier this month in KL.

The children, aged 13 to 16, trained for three months with students from Taylor’s College to learn photojournalism. The project is presented through Global Changemakers’s “See The World Through Our Eyes” project and organized with support from Amnesty International Malaysia.

After the exhibition, the photography program will continue, says Colin Boyd Shafer, lecturer and Global Issues Conference Advisor for Taylor’s College. “The students still have their cameras and are being encouraged to keep up shooting.”

According to the UNHCR, there are about 40,000 registered Burmese refugees in Malaysia, most of whom are ethnic minorities like the Chin. Many more are undocumented and the total number of refugees may be as high as one million.

The government of Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Burmese in Malaysia face arrest, detention, and deportation.

View video of the exhibition opening held at the Annexe Gallery in Kuala Lumpur: