A crowd funding campaign aims to see up to 50 young refugees from across western Sydney photograph and exhibit their stories in Parramatta in January.
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The Seeing Summer project will partner seasoned photojournalist Conor Ashleigh with young asylum seekers from Afghanistan and South Sudan to document their visions of life in Australia.
Ashleigh, 26, who has freelanced for major national and international media including Fairfax Media, the New York Times, Le Monde and Al Jazeera, said the project aimed to empower young people from migrant communities aged 16 and under to have their photographic work exhibited professionally.
"There's an open invitation to young South Sudanese and Afghan people to register their interest," he said.
As part of the project, Ashleigh will spend a week with each of the two groups giving photography workshops. Photos will be published online daily to create an "online conversation" around the project.
The workshops will culminate with an exhibition and panel discussion with the budding photographers.
On Thursday, the project's crowd funding campaign reached its tipping point of $12,500, which means it will proceed, but the "ultimate goal" is $20,000.
In the past, Ashleigh's work has taken him to places like Nepal, where he photographed child labourers in brick kilns, East Timor, the Central African Republic and to South Sudan in 2011 to document the Referendum for independence.
In 2013, he returned to South Sudan on assignment for Fairfax Media with journalist Ilya Gridneff to document the anniversary of the Referendum.
When he returned, he decided to document the lives of the young South Sudanese communities of western Sydney, particularly in Blacktown, Penrith and Auburn. Later, he extended the parameters to include Afghan communities.
"That took me into the homes of many people. I went to weddings, to hip hop events, soccer and basketball matches and even a bride price ceremony.
"All of this was fodder for building up a project that I'm now pitching to be published internationally. But I wanted it to be exhibited locally."
Some of his own work to be exhibited includes photographs of a South Sudanese soccer team at Peter Van Hasselt Park at Shalvey, 17-year-old tae kwon do brown belt Saleha Amin from South Granville High School undergoing training and a traditional Afghan baker making bread at Fairfield.
This story first appeared on Parramatta Sun.
