Refugee life explored in “I Live Here”

Much too often, the pain in the world goes overlooked; much too often, the hunger of people is unnoticed; much too often, human suffering is pushed to the wayside. As you open “I Live Here,” the quote “there are too many stories” resonates throughout the four books that are enclosed in the cover of this moving composition.

“I Live Here” by Mia Kirshner, J.B. MacKinnon Paul Shoebridge, and Michael Simmons is a moving documentary of the lives on refugees and people who have been displaced from their homes by wars or fear for their lives. The authors of the book had to travel to all corners of the globe: the war in Chechnya, ethnic cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico and AIDS in Malawi, telling the heart-wrenching stories of these people.

Mia Kishner, actress turned social advocate, came up with the idea for the book. “I had a day job, but I felt uninspired at work; not really plugging into my environment. After Sept. 11th, I was frightened…frightened by my own level of ignorance. From there I started research and put the idea for this book together,” she said.

This book is not a typical documentary. It combines stories with photography and art by renowned artists Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner and Chris Abani, among others. Trying to describe this book accurately is nearly impossible because of its individuality and uniqueness. It is truly something you have to pick up and read yourself. The stories told are those that no person should ever have to experience yet inspirational in a way. “I asked people to tell their most personal experiences,” Kishner said. “In spite of these terrible conditions that people have been forced to live in, not by choice, the grace in which they function under is something that one can’t help to be completely inspired by.”

The book is only one small part of a larger movement sponsored by the I Live Here Foundation. The foundation is “dedicated to telling the stories of the silenced and unheard people through a series of books and other media projects about our world.” Another facet of their mission is to bring creative writing programs to the areas in which their members travel. This is in the hope that they will facilitate creative communication between strangers. This book is the first multimedia project, and it is going to be released in concurrence with a creative writing program being started at the Kachere Juvenile Center prison in Lilongwe, Malawi. Many of the prisoners in Kachere are orphans who do not have any families to take responsibility of them, making the cells overcrowded and the conditions heinous.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. The foundation are already working on a second book project, which is in the funding stages, will focus on locations such as Iran and Colombia, and with that will come a writing program in brothels all along the Thailand/Burma border. If you would like to learn more about these projects, visit i-live-here.com. You can view the whole book here with detailed background information. It is hard to read this book and not be moved and impassioned to stand up and help.

The first book is Ingusheia, which is located on the border of the Russian republic. There are approximately 15,000 children who live as refugees there. In 1994, Chechnya tried to declare itself independent from Russia, which led to a “dirty war” against Chechnya. There was a great loss of life. Although Moscow in Russia has declared the war over, many people fear to return to their homes. Imagine not being able to return to a life at home because of fearing for your life.

Burma is located on the Thailand border. Many Burmans flee into Thailand due to a dictatorship that has plagued Burma since 1969. There has been much upheaval due to the governing system in place. Sadly, the Thai government is in no hurry to help facilitate a fix for this problem, since the refugees on the border provide much of the manual labor, domestic work and sex trade that is seen in Thailand. Michael Simons, one of the authors of the book, spoke about his trip over to Thailand.

“Mia and I both took three week trips to the region separately. I collected as much material as I could for the stories,” Simons said. “The stories are theirs. Some of the visuals were created by them, and other visuals were in collaboration with artist back at home.”

In Ciudad Juárez, located right across the border from El Paso, Texas, the center of factory productions, drug trafficking and the disappearances of women. Many of the women who come to work at the factories end up disappearing, only to be found a while later murdered with signs of rape and torture. Many cry out for a stop to the violence, pleading that so many murders could not be possible without the police and authorities turning a blind eye.

The fourth and final book is set in Malawi, Africa. AIDS has a strong grasp in Africa. Malawi, one of the poorest nations in Africa, has become the center for refugees to come to when displaced by this terrible disease. “AIDS turns villages into ghost towns, orphans children, and empties schools and hospitals of children,” according to the book. In the capital city, Lilongwe, one in five is infected with HIV. Due to the high death rate in Malawi, there are 41 coffin shops in a single district. The demand for coffins is so high that deforestation of soft pine in Malawi is a growing concern.

Shoebridge described the overall appearance of the book as something that he was most proud of.

“The book was very labor intensive. All the pages had to be put together by hand,” Shoebridge said.
This book is visually stunning and emotionally moving. “The thing that this book points towards is we are connected by these stories,” Kishner said.

It is so important to understand the world in which we live in; that we are all interconnected one way or another. “College students, high school students junior-high students are the most important people that I want the book to reach because you guys are the very people that will have the energy and drive to go out and talk about this- to start a grassroots movement,” Kishner said.

The book is now on shelves and all the proceeds from the book go to Amnesty International. Go pick up a copy today, or go look at it online, and make a small difference in the world around you that is in desperate need of some change.

“These stories are about us.”