Reading time 5 minutes
Video 5:24
WOUT ON THE GO WITH... FOUAD HALLAK
“We paid a high price for freedom”
For every publication of HENRY+, documentary maker Wout van Wengerden visits a Red Cross colleague who stands out. Photojournalist Fouad Hallak fled to the Netherlands in 2016 and is now a volunteer photographer for the Red Cross. Wout asks him about his experiences in Syria, his life in the Netherlands and what freedom means to him.
This time Wout is visiting Fouad Hallak in Utrecht. The Syrian photographer fled to the Netherlands five years ago. The conflict in his homeland has left big scars. "We need freedom in Syria", he says with a troubled look.
Fouad was an eyewitness to the bombing and destruction that was done by the fighting parties. In 2013, he started recording the events in his city. "Foreign reporters had no access to it and so I wanted to document what happened."
In the Netherlands he became a volunteer photographer for the Red Cross, work that makes him proud. It reminds him of a friend in Aleppo who worked for the Red Crescent, a sister organization of the Red Cross in Syria. "That friend was arrested just because he wanted to help people. That was seen as a crime against the regime."
A photo of playing children that Fouad took in Syria; he has hope for the next generation
Small traces of hope
Fouad grabs his camera, puts on his cap and leaves with Wout for the Red Cross building in his hometown. There he first photographs a medical student, then he gets on a Red Cross bus and makes a report about an elderly lady during a drive to the vaccination centre.
"We paid a high price to get freedom," Fouad recalls. "Too high. Freedom to me means I can do what I want to do and say what I want to say."
His stilled images of Syria tell the story of a ravaged country and its tormented inhabitants. "I'm trying to show that there is hope, especially for the next generation." You see small traces of hope in the eyes of the young children he captured with his camera, children who - despite the conflict in their country - have fun together.
"With volunteering I can contribute to the community in the Netherlands. Sometimes we need help, but often we also have something to give. In this way we can improve the world around us, together. It is a circle that we have to keep going."