In the field
Even before HumanizaCom was formed, its current members were already developing professional, research and outreach activities in Brazil and other countries, especially reporting on topics such as disasters, climate change and forced displacement due to wars and conflicts. The field has been a great experience for us, because it is there that we get to know people and their realities more closely and it is to them that we try to return our modest contribution, preventing their suffering from being ignored or underestimated, including by the media and academia. The closer contact with the field aims to bring HumanizaCom 's research and actions closer to people, groups and communities, especially in the most vulnerable territories, where the impacts and consequences of conflicts, wars, disasters, climate change and economic and political instability are felt in the daily lives of their populations.
In this section, we have chosen to share only records that do not perpetuate or exploit the violation of human and civil rights of victims of wars, conflicts, disasters and climate emergencies. HumanizaCom is committed to humanitarian ethics and is aware of the risks and damage caused by overexposure of populations in situations of greater vulnerability, avoiding compassion fatigue, moral panic and the fleetingness of pity.
2024
Kenya
In May 2024, Professor Cilene Victor participated in the United Nations Conference with Civil Society, held in Nairobi, Kenya. This activity was part of the Global South Perspectives Network project, an initiative of HumanizaCom , the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS), based in Belgium, and the Inclusive Society Institute, from South Africa. After the Conference, whose photo gallery is in the Global South Perspectives Network project section, the professor went to see social projects in Kibera, considered the largest slum in the African continent. The focus of the visit was educational projects and workshops for producing jewelry using recycled materials and sold in the centers of Nairobi. The selected photos also avoid perpetuating the violation of human and civil rights suffered by the population of that territory, preventing them from being portrayed as objects of pity. In Kibera, as in all peripheral territories, there is human suffering on a large scale, but there is also protagonism, resistance, struggle and resilience of its population and its leaders.
Visit to social and educational projects in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya
Image credits: Cilene Victor and hosts.
2018
Lebanon
In June 2018, Professor Cilene Victor visited the Syrian and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which at the time was the country with the largest population of migrants and refugees per capita. The camps visited included Al-Alawda and Al-Yasmine, in the Beqaa Valley, where the Syrian population that had sought refuge in the neighboring country was sheltered, and Ein El Hilweh, in Sidon, a Palestinian refugee camp created in 1948.
In October of the same year, the professor returned to the country with master's student Wagner Ribeiro, a former member of HumanizaCom , and Abdo Ja Rour, a Syrian refugee in Brazil. They had been in the camps in the Beqaa Valley and in Tripoli, but were not given permission by the Lebanese authorities to enter Ein El Hilweh.
The visits to the Syrian refugee camps were only possible thanks to the team from URDA, one of the most important humanitarian agencies in the world and responsible for some of the camps in the country. The images of the camps and the people in refugee situations that we share on this HumanizaCom website were authorized by URDA.
Production of special reports for Jornal da Cultura
Image credits: Cilene Victor.
2019
Iran, Iraq and Lebanon
In July 2019, Cilene Victor and Lilian Sanches carried out field activities in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, which resulted in a pilot Media Interventions project with Jornal da Cultura, under the direction of Willian Correa and Ricardo Taíra. The main objective of the project was to challenge the hegemonic narratives about Iran and Iraq, in particular by listening to the scientific community of both countries on major issues, such as international law, peace, wars and conflicts.
In Iran and Iraq, in addition to producing reports, the researchers participated in events, meetings and academic gatherings, gave lectures on media and Islamophobia and visited TV stations in Tehran (Iran) and Karbala (Iraq). Professor Cilene Victor taught an introductory course on Islam at Al Mustafa University in Qom.
In Lebanon, the researchers repeated the same visits to the fields in the Beqaa Valley and Tripoli, but were also unable to enter Ein El Hilweh, in Sidon.
These field experiences in Lebanon, as well as the first two visits to the country, resulted in reports based on the precepts of humanitarian journalism, especially by prioritizing the voices of immigrants and refugees and humanitarian workers, to the detriment of the speeches of official authorities.
Images of Iran
Image credits: Cilene Victor and Lilian Sanches.
Images of Iraq
Image credits: Cilene Victor and Lilian Sanches.
Images of Lebanon
Image credits: Cilene Victor and Lilian Sanches.
Reports
In 2018, during field activities initially focused on research into the foundations of humanitarian and peace journalism, Professor Cilene Victor proposed to the editor and head of reporting at Jornal da Cultura, Willian Correa and Ricardo Taíra, respectively, the production of reports based on the precepts of these two merging journalistic practices. Within the scope of this media intervention action, aimed at finding new lenses to cover humanitarian issues and major tensions, reports were produced during the coverage of COP 24 in Katowice, Poland, the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in Marrakech, Morocco, and reports in Iran, Iraq, especially in the Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, and in Lebanon, with attention to the situation of Syrian and Palestinian refugees in that country.
