“Rohingya Delivering Messages for Rohingya, to Rohingya. This Is How We Dreamed to Have a Film School”

17 May 2021 (UNHCR)* — Faruque Mohammed, 33, is a Rohingya refugee and co-founder of Omar’s Film School in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The informal school trains young Rohingya refugees on photography and videography so they can tell their own stories.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the school has also dedicated itself to informing the refugee community about the virus. We talked to Faruque about how the film school came about and his hopes for the future.

I have been living in refugee camps [in Cox’s Bazar] since 1992 – I’ve spent almost my entire life in different camps. I cannot remember how my own family fled Myanmar because I was a little kid when my parents fled to Bangladesh.

I only studied to Grade 5 in a refugee camp school. I did not have proper schooling. But we felt like we needed to know English to let the world know how we are surviving here – our expectations, and how we should solve our problems.

I used to read whatever I had, and I used to watch English movies. I learned by speaking to foreigners and to the people around me. I worked as a teacher in the refugee camp and interpreted sometimes for UN staff.

The vision and the inspiration to have this kind of film school started in 2017 when my brother, Omar, and I were working with media during the influx of Rohingya refugees.

We saw a lot of journalists, a lot of people came with cameras and we approached them, we said: “I can speak English, I am a Rohingya, I know the situation. I can help you.” My brother and I worked as fixers for many international news organizations.

Omar worked a lot with Reuters photojournalists and his passion for photography and video grew and grew. He started learning from those he was working with, and Reuters also wanted to give him a camera to take photos in their absence. We taught ourselves from YouTube too, and later had online training from international photographers. 

We were helping the Rohingya settle in the camp, and also interpreting for media interviews. I would introduce myself and say, “I am a Rohingya, I am your fellow brother, I am your son.”

Then they expressed their real suffering to me. It was another kind of emotion they were expressing [in Rohingya] to what they could say in English.

What I felt and understood was that if a Rohingya delivered a message to another Rohingya, it’s very easy for them to understand; it’s very convincing. The idea was Rohingya delivering messages for Rohingya, to Rohingya. This is how we dreamed to have a film school for them.