Inside-Outside app for iPhone and iPad

The Inside-Outside Project is filled with stunning portraits of Syrian children, and the shocking drawings they drew in art classes. Essays by the participants talk about working with the children, the Syrian civil war, and our experiences of each school.

You can submit drawings to the project from the app, to share with the Syrians. Please do!

The app is also a platform for multimedia advocacy. It showcases photography, art, stories, and essays. It is also a medium for sharing peoples lives, beginning with the Syrian refugee children in our project from Turkey.

We visited four Syrian schools (and a neighborhood tea garden) where we photographed hundreds of portraits of Syrian children, and we have collected drawings from art classes and art therapy sessions we provided.

The goal of our first project is to find an unusual and compelling way to connect you with the Syrian children who need your help. Images of refugees in the media generally dont help us make the emotional connections to these distant and foreign people that lead to action. We know there is a problem because, despite the media coverage of the Syrian war, humanitarian aid organizations still dont have the resources they need to help the refugees.

This project seeks to break through the filters of distance and otherness by presenting Syrian children as dignified individuals while sharing their inner turmoil in a way that any parent can immediately understand.

We hope this project will raise awareness of the Syrian refugee crisis. We hope to bring more art to more children, because we learned from this project that for these kids, who often feel powerless and controlled, self-expression is necessary for mental health. Art becomes a necessity, not a luxury.

The app is rated 17+ because it allows access to various websites.