Saeede Jafari
Painter
Saeede is 36 years old, she is a mother of two and she was born in Afghanistan. Even though she has always loved colouring, her experience as a painter started only eight months ago, when she was already on the island of Lesvos, and this interest was the main inspiration to join Wave of Hope for the Future.
She arrived on the island of Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker one and a half years ago, so she has a lot of experience and knowledge about the condition of refugees on the island. For Saeede, painting is a source of inner peace and a reason of hope for the future.
Atifa Akbari
Painter and Photographer
Atifa is 19 years old, she is from Afghanistan and she is an eclectic artist. She has been gaining experience in photography and video making for over a year, as a student at ReFocus Media Labs. She has been collaborating with the Hope Project for over a year and a half. Alongside this passion, she has recently discovered her talent as a painter, practicing different techinques. She has been collaborating with Wave of Hope for the Future self organization since winter 2020.
She arrived on the island of Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker two years ago, in 2019.
Nawab Ali Abozari
Painter
Nawab Ali is 43 years old and he is a father of two. He is from Afghanistan and his passion for art began when he was a child. Growing up, he stopped painting for many years, but he always kept nurturing the dream of becoming a painter. It was only at around 35 years old that he began to paint again, studying as autodidatc and practicing with a friend.
He arrived on the island of Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker in winter 2019, and he has been collaborating with Wave of Hope for the Future self organization since April 2021. He enjoys the relaxed space of the Art Gallery in Mytilini, where he can concentrate on his art almost every day, away from the overcrowding and lack of privacy of the camp of Moria 2.0.
Rehane Husseini
Painter
Rehane is from Afghanistan and she is 18-years old. She has always loved art, especially drawing, and she practiced it ever since she was a child. She has been a painter for many years now. Rehane came to Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker one and a half years ago and she has been living in the camp of Moria, and then Moria 2.0 ever since. She joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Homeyra Bahaduri
Painter
Homeyra is from Afghanistan and she is 16-years-old. She discovered her passion for painting after she arrived in Lesvos. Today, she really loves practicing as a painter and she wants to grow as an artist and improve her skills. She also recently discovered her passion for music and began playing the guitar occasionally. She came to Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker one year ago and she has been living in the camp of Moria, and then Moria 2.0 ever since. She joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Homa Qurbani
Painter
Homa is from Afghanistan and she is 16-years-old. Even though she only started painting six-months ago, she likes to experiment with different painting techniques, showing incredible results. For Homa, painting is a way to express feelings and emotions that is impossible to describe with words. She came to Lesvos one year and one month ago and she has been living in the camp of Moria, and then Moria 2.0 ever since. She joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Mina Faizi
Tailor
Mina is from Afghanistan and she is 22 years old. Even though she is so young, she is already very talented. She started to knit crochet already when she was 12 years old when she met a friend who was knitting. That’s how she became an artist and started to sell self-made clothes. She arrived on Lesvos in September 2019 and joined Wave of Hope for the Future in February 2021. Most of the time she enjoys knitting but when she loses the motivation she remembers how important it is to keep being active and support her family. As a person, Mina has a lot of empathy and is very quick in taking decisions. Beside knitting clothes she also writes poems and journalistic articles. Last but not least, her dream is to travel all around the world.
Daddy Menayaku
Painter
Daddy is 33 years-old and he is a father of two. He is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and his passion for art began when he was only a child of around eight-years-old. He remembers going to the cinematheque with his friends to take inspiration from the posters of 007, Commando Liberation, Rambo and many others for his first drawings. After his primary education, he applied for the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa and there he completed his studies, specializing as a painter.
Daddy came to Lesvos as an asylum seeker one year ago and the life conditions in the refugee camp forced him to stop practicing his art. He joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021 and he is now happy to be back to his brush!
Alongside being a professional painter, Daddy is also an expert interior designer, a hall decorator and an event planner, with experience in designing different types of events, such as weddings, buffets, celebrations, etc. His passion embraces all types of arts.
Najibullah Hosseini
Painter
Najibullah is 26- years old and he is from Afghanistan. He started drawing and painting when he was eight-years-old and ever since then, he has been determined to improve his talent. His dream has always been to increase his knowledge by studying art on an academic level, a goal that he was able to achieve when he was accepted in the School of Art of the University of Herat. The decision of leaving Afghanistan forced him to interrupt his studies. For this reason, his goal is to complete his education once he moves forward into Europe.
He has arrived in Lesvos as an asylum seeker in November 2019 together with his family, and he has been living in Moria and then Moria 2.0 camo eversince. At the moment, he is waiting to be able to reach his relatives as they now live in Germany. For Najib, his art is his tool to voice the story, the struggles and the hopes of his people and he is determined to continue expressing through his painting. He is also an experienced mural painter and some of his beautiful creations can be admired in the One Happy Family community center in Lesvos.
Karim Dinganga
Karim is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he is 22 years old and he already has a long experience with art, especially considering his young age. He has been active in the world of art since 2002 and he completed his studies at the Fine Art Academy back in his country, specializing as a ceramist. It was in 2013 that he discovered his talent as a painter. Today, his goal is to gain more and more expertise in this art.
He has been collaborating with Wave of Hope for the Future since May 2021.
Muhebullah Habibzai
Muhebullah is 17 years old and he is originally from Afghanistan but he was born in Pakistan, where he attended primary school in Karachi. He is a photographer and short films maker, a passion that he had the chance to practice in @team_papalo_official, as well as with the Corona Awareness Team of Wave of Hope for the Future for three months in Moria refugee camp.
He arrived on the island of Lesvos back in February 2019, with his mother and his two brothers. After spending 16 months on the island, he moved to Athens, where he has been living for almost a year.
His dream is to become a professional photographer and to show the condition of refugees to the world with his work.
Soraya Maheen
Painter, Painting Teacher
Soraya was born in Chah Ab district of Takhar province in Afghanistan. In 2011, she graduated from BeBe Sarwari Sangari High School. After her graduation, she immediately started working as a teacher in Kaynat School and Abdullah ibne Zaid School. After gathering experience in this field for four years, she became a student of Curative Medicine at the Afghan Swiss University. She has a certificate of DEL from Azheer Institute and a certificate of CIT from Ama-e-Shamal Institute.
She studied painting and drawing at the Azimi Art Institute and her artworks have been exposed and participated to competitions.
She also has internship experiences with governmental institutions and with organizations active in social and cultural promotion.
She started working as a teacher in Wave of Hope For the Future from January 2021. She is now teaching painting, drawing and Calligraphy to WHF students in Kabul, Afghanistan and she currently has over forty students attending her classes.
Kazem Safari
Kazem is 19 years old and he is from Bamiyan, Afghanistan. He started painting around four years ago and he studied for five months in order to specialize in portrait and miniature. His passion and interest made him able to evolve rapidly and to distinguish himself among his fellow students. Unfortunately, the dire situation in his country forced him to escape and to search for protection on Lesvos, where he arrived in December 2019. Soon after his arrival he began working as a painter in the Hope Project, where he still working today.
Kazem joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Seyar Mobarez
Photographer
Seyar is 15 years old and he is from Kabul, Afghanistan, where he graduated at the Khorshed High School. He arrived in Greece through the island of Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker seventeen months ago. He lived in Moria refugee came for nine months and then he moved to Athens with his mother and father over eight months ago. His family and he got asylum.
Seyar is working for Wave of Hope self organization since March 2021 as photographer.
His dream is to become a good footballer and a professional photographer and to help his country and other refugees.
Lida Sherzad
Painting Teacher
Lida is from Kabul, Afghanistan. She completed her studies in Fine Arts nine years ago, and for the following two years, she worked in a non-profit organization (Ashyana). She also had various experiences of work with governmental institutions in her country, where she worked with unaccompanied minors for two years, and with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. She also worked in governmental as well as private schools in the district of Farza.
She decided to move to Turkey to join her husband Shukran, and later they decided to travel to Greece. On Lesvos, she reunited with her brother and founder of the school of Wave of Hope for the Future, Zikria Farzad. She joined the school, where she has been working as a teacher in the camp of Moria (and Moria 2.0) and as an artist of the Art Gallery in Mytilini for around one and a half years.
Omid Heydari
Omid is 21 years old and he is from Afghanistan. His passion for art began seven years ago. Back then, he was only a 12-years-old child and at school, his teacher was always encouraging him to paint for his classmates, because he already recognized his talent. He started drawing simple subjects, like fruit and soon enough he started to teach his classmates how to create art. His biggest interest has always been painting. When he was 15 years old, he started focusing more into building up an artistic education, which he decided to do as an autodidact, with the help of tutorials he found on the Internet. He practiced especially by painting natural landscapes. At that age, he also began to experiment with sculpture. He remembers creating the sculpture of the bust of the President of Afghanistan and showing it to his teacher, who was like a father to him. His teacher congratulated him for his talent. He suggested leaving Afghanistan and finding his fortune in a safer country, where he could finally express his art without fearing for his life. This advice has made him decide that he wanted to travel to Europe. So he left his country with his aunt, moving to Pakistan, and then to Iran and to Turkey, where he spent three years in Karabuk, working in a restaurant and dedicating to his art only occasionally. In fact, the life-conditions were very difficult there because of the discrimination against immigrants that he experienced from many people. His determination to build a better future made him decide to go to Greece, to get documents and begin studying. His experience in Lesvos has always been very hard to withstand, because of the difficulties to get documents and create a stable life. Now his fear is to be forced to go back to Afghanistan, after all the efforts and challenges he had to go through to get where he is now. For him, this eventuality would be the end of his future.
For Omid, painting is a way to express his beliefs, and to spread the love for peace.
He came to Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker 3 years ago and he has been living in the camp of Moria, and then Moria 2.0 ever since. Now, he is working with EuroRelief as a translator for Turkish, Indian, Urdu and Farsi. Occasionally he also teaches painting to children with StandByMe. He joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Raziyeh Khawari
Painter
Raziyeh is 15 years old and she is from Afghanistan. She has been interested in painting ever since she was 13, as she always considered it a way to express people’s feelings and emotions. Initially, she began by drawing faces and just experimenting with the use of black ink on the board. When she came to Lesvos as an asylum seeker, her interest for painting grew stronger and thanks to encouragement of her friends, she decided to try to practice more. For her, drawing is a way to talk about her country, but also to express her personal feelings and ideas through her art. For her, painting is a way to escape the reality she is experiencing during this moment of her life and to just immerse herself into her inner life. Her dream is to become a famous artist and she is determined to chase it until she will achieve it and to be happy with her life.
Raziyeh also works as an English teacher for children for Team Moria Academia. She holds classes every morning for five days a week. Every now and then, she also works as a translator for EuroRelief, mostly to improve her own English skills.
She came to Lesvos about two years ago with her parents and siblings and she has been living in the camp of Moria, and then Moria 2.0 ever since. Raziyeh joined Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Sedighe Ahmadi
Painter
Sedighe is 20 years old and she is from Afghanistan. She became an artist when she was in Iran where she was born and raised. There, she received her first artistic education, by attending an Art School in Karaj for six months when she was 17 years old. Alongside painting, she has also always loved drawing. When she is concentrating on her art, she feels her mind freeing from every other thoughts and she loves the feeling of focusing on her creative energy.
Sedighe has experience as a painting teacher with children that she developed during six months when she was living in Moria with another organization.
She came to Lesvos as an Asylum Seeker one year and eight month ago with her family and she has been living in the camp of Moria and then Moria 2.0 ever since. She started collaborating with Wave of Hope for the Future in May 2021.
Ahmad (Shukran) Sherzad
Shukran is from Afghanistan and he has been teaching painting for 14 years. He also has a passion for acting, and he gained experience in the field for six years, with roles in different programs and serials in different TV channels. He decided to leave Afghanistan and moved to Iran and then Turkey, where he lived for one and a half years. As life was not easy there, his wife and he decided to move to Greece.
In Lesvos, he came to know the school of Wave of Hope for the Future, he learned about its teaching programs for refugees, both kids and adults, and he decided to join. He met his brother-in-law and founder of WHF, Zikria Farzad and together they arranged one painting class for him.
Masoume Mohammadi
Masoume is 16 years old and she is from Afghanistan. She has been practicing painting since three months ago and she is already showing incredible results thanks to her dedication. For her, drawing and painting is a chance to find peace and tranquility for her mind.
Masoume arrived on Lesvos as an asylum seeker in 2019 and she has been collaborating with Wave of Hope for the Future since June 2021.