Human Rights & Human Wrongs: From Learning to Publication
Updated: 27 minutes ago
By Ahtaram Shin and Maung Emdadul Hasan, with survey and data analysis by Maung Emdadul Hasan. Edited by David Palazón
On Saturday 17 October 2026, more than 70 people gathered at the ARNC office in Camp 9, Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh), to celebrate the completion of Human Rights & Human Wrongs, a 30-week course combining human rights education with photography, visual storytelling and creative practice. The graduation marked the culmination of thirty weeks of learning, making, testing ideas and documenting the world around them.
The programme received more than 250 applications, from which 80 students were initially selected. From January to September 2026, participants explored human rights through photography, photo essays, writing, illustration, painting and other forms of creative expression. Their work connected the principles they studied with their own experiences and the realities of life in the Rohingya community.
Implemented by Rohingyatographer, with support from the Global Statelessness Fund, the course was built around the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. Each week focused on a different article, moving from freedom and equality to education, nationality, freedom of expression, culture, work and the protection of rights.
At its core was practice-based learning: connecting ideas and discussions to practical exercises, independent research, creative experimentation and reflection. Rather than relying on lectures alone, the programme invited participants to recognise human rights in everyday life, investigate what they observed, try different ways of communicating their findings and develop their own approaches to storytelling. Weekly assignments were complemented by reference materials, guest presentations, collaborative activities and opportunities to review what had been learned.
From rights on paper to lived experience
For Rohingya students, human rights are not an abstract subject. Questions of discrimination, education, nationality, freedom of movement, identity and cultural expression are closely connected to personal and community experiences. The course invited participants to explore these connections and consider how they could document them responsibly.
What does equality mean when people experience discrimination? What does the right to education mean when access to learning is restricted? How can someone document a community’s history and culture when so much of that history has been threatened or lost? And how can a photograph reveal an important issue without reducing the person in front of the camera to a subject of suffering?
These questions became part of the weekly assignments. Participants were encouraged to look beyond a single image, research the stories behind it, listen to the people involved and consider the context in which their work would be seen. This connected human rights education directly to community engagement: observing, listening to and learning from people, places, experiences and histories within the community itself.
Sadek Husein captured the responsibility involved in this process simply: “I learned the responsibility that comes with documenting people's lives.”
The distinction between taking a picture and developing a story became a recurring theme. An early assignment, Storytelling vs Telling a Story, explored the difference between recording what happened and developing a narrative that helps an audience understand its context and meaning. Participants were encouraged to move from facts towards interpretation and metaphor without losing sight of accuracy.
“Before this course, I knew how to take a picture. Through this journey, I learned how to look beyond the picture and tell the story behind it.” — Lokman Hakim
A photograph can capture a moment, while a photo story can help others understand the experience behind it. Developing that story requires curiosity and research as much as technical skill. Participants were encouraged to consider what an image shows, what it leaves out and what a viewer needs to understand about the people and circumstances behind it.
Learning through different methods
The weekly sessions provided a starting point for learning, but much of the work happened between them. Participants received reference materials, including films, photographs, articles and presentations, and were expected to study independently, investigate subjects in their own time and develop an original response to each assignment. Every week brought a new human rights theme and a different practical challenge.
This approach encouraged participants to take responsibility for their own learning. They had to decide what to observe, which questions to ask, what background research was needed and which method might communicate their ideas most clearly. Some assignments called for a single photograph and caption; others invited photo essays, writing, illustration, video or art-based responses. The variety was intentional: different questions require different ways of looking and different ways of telling a story.
Several exercises introduced methods of investigation that could also be used outside photography. Mapping Labour and Mental Health, for example, encouraged participants to explore relationships, experiences and patterns rather than concentrating on a single person or isolated event. Mapping can make complex issues easier to examine, helping the creator decide what to investigate and how to represent connections that might otherwise remain invisible.
The course also brought together participants with different backgrounds and experiences. Of the 72 learners recorded in the final course audit, 20 were women, including 14 studying at the Asian University for Women. Their participation was an important part of the programme’s effort to create opportunities for Rohingya women to develop their knowledge, creative skills and confidence, and to contribute their perspectives to visual storytelling and the wider Rohingyatographer Collective.
The assignment Evidence of Existence approached documentation from another angle: how can an image establish presence, identity or an experience that might otherwise go unrecognised? Other exercises connected photography to legal recognition, equality and the importance of being seen. Participants were challenged to think not only about what a photograph looked like, but also about what it could communicate and why that evidence mattered.
The course also explored how people preserve memories across displacement. Under the theme Archiving Memory, participants were asked to document a family photograph or an old document carried from Myanmar by themselves, their family or someone they knew. The exercise connected an object to the people who preserved it, the history it carried and the reasons it remained meaningful.
The related assignment Material Memories invited participants to document a physical object connected to life before displacement. Another exercise, The Architecture of Belonging, considered how food, artefacts and rituals can maintain cultural continuity across the Arakan diaspora. Through these approaches, material culture became a way to investigate identity, memory and belonging through the things people use, keep, pass on or carry with them.
Oral traditions offered another route into this history. Participants explored stories, proverbs and folktales, considering how knowledge passes between generations and how personal accounts can contribute to a wider understanding of Rohingya history.
For Somiha, the assignments created an opportunity to learn directly from elders: “Through oral history, I learned from elders about our ancestors, culture, past lives, and memories that connect us to Arakan.”
These exercises helped participants see that documentary work does not have to begin with a dramatic event. It can begin with an object, a family memory, a conversation or a familiar place, and develop into a story about identity, displacement, cultural continuity or the right to belong.
Shohida Abul reflected: “Although I am part of the Rohingya community, I realised that there were many parts of my own culture and history that I had not explored deeply before.”
Learning with photographers, researchers and human rights practitioners
The course was also shaped by people who brought professional experience from photography, journalism, design, anthropology, human rights advocacy and other fields. Their contributions connected the weekly themes to different ways of investigating and communicating the world, giving participants examples to consider as they developed their own work. The guest sessions included:
Photography and visual storytelling: Patrick Brown, photographer and visual storyteller; Greg Constantine, documentary photographer and author; Deanne Fitzmaurice, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist; Victoria Milko, multimedia journalist for the Associated Press; and Ro Yassin Abdumonab, Rohingya photographer and mentor.
History, identity and belonging: Dr Koji Lau-Ozawa, archaeologist and anthropologist at UCLA; Michael Shaikh, writer and human rights activist; and Carrie Perkins, faculty member at Soka University of America.
Human rights, nationality and protection: Amal de Chickera, human rights lawyer and co-founder and co-director of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion; Arelis R. Hernández, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Washington Post; Jade Hutt, whose work includes migration studies; and Daiana Cipollone, UN adviser and peacekeeper.
Art, design and creative practice: Mayyu Khan, Rohingya digital artist; Krystal Chryssomallis, photographer; Hanna Ji, designer; Tasman Munro, social designer; David Palazón, independent designer, filmmaker and curator, and co-founder and producer of Rohingyatographer; and Carlina Martínez and Héctor Tabares Rodríguez, whose experimental design practice, Diseño Detonante, is based in Colombia.
Community knowledge and Rohingya-led practice: Enayet Khan, Art Director at Rohingyatographer and founder of the Rohingya Arts Club; Sahat Zia Hero, photojournalist and co-founder of Rohingyatographer; Ahtaram Shin, Editor; Ayub Khan Dkl, social media and community manager and freelance photojournalist; and Ishrat Bibi, who led women’s inclusion.
Other perspectives: Sigfried Janzing, whose work engages with photography, research and dialogue; Imran Mohammed, social worker and former elected chairperson of Kutupalong camp; Rozina Akter, Rohingya human rights advocate; Dr Chika Esiobu, Professor of African Studies at Soka University; and Karin Schermbrucker, photographer and visual storyteller.
The range of contributors mattered because human rights storytelling involves more than photographic technique. It can require historical research, careful interviewing, knowledge of law and protection, design decisions, ethical judgement and an understanding of how images circulate. The sessions offered participants different perspectives to draw on as they developed their own responses to the weekly assignments.
The programme was delivered through the combined efforts of the Rohingyatographer team. Course director David Palazón designed and led the programme, while editor-in-chief Ahtaram Shin coordinated the online sessions and supported participants throughout the course, including by translating for many of the guest speakers. Ishrat Bibi led women’s inclusion, Ayub Khan Dkl managed social media and the online community, and Sahat Zia Hero contributed as a co-founder, mentor and photographer. Enayet Khan supported the creative programme through his work with Rohingyatographer and the Rohingya Arts Club. Caden Choi, the course intern, helped identify and connect with guest speakers.
The course was made possible by the work of the team, the contributions of guest speakers and, above all, the commitment of participants who brought their own experiences, questions and creative ideas to the programme.
Belonging, everyday life and community engagement
The calendar also made room for stories about ordinary experience. The assignment A Day in Someone’s Life invited participants to develop family narratives by following a person through daily life. Rather than selecting a single striking moment, this approach encouraged sustained observation: noticing routines, relationships, responsibilities and the details that reveal how people live.
Other exercises explored domestic and spiritual spaces, asking participants to photograph places or objects associated with reflection, faith and a sense of sanctuary. These themes connected the right to thought and religion with personal experience, reinforcing the idea that a meaningful story can emerge from careful attention to everyday life, not only from exceptional events.
Under Freedom of Expression, participants were asked to consider the visual relationship between camp management and refugee self-representation. Later, the assignment Mapping Identity focused on dignified portraits that could contribute to a collective archive showing the cultural diversity within the Rohingya community. The aim was to document identity and difference while building a broader visual record of the people who make up the community.
These exercises placed community engagement at the centre of visual storytelling. Participants were not simply asked to photograph their surroundings; they were encouraged to learn about the people and contexts involved, think about how people wanted to be represented and consider how a series of images might contribute to a shared record.
For Sujut Ara, documenting culture meant recognising the importance of objects through which identity and memory are carried: “I learned how to document and preserve cultural objects as important parts of Rohingya identity, memory, and heritage.”
Collaboration, inclusive storytelling and shared authorship
Although participants completed many assignments independently, teamwork and collaboration were also important parts of the programme. The calendar included two in-camp mural activities led by Enayet Khan, Art Director at Rohingyatographer and founder of the Rohingya Arts Club. Participants worked together on large-scale creative projects in which the result depended on individual contributions being brought into a shared whole.
The mural activities introduced a different relationship between maker, material and audience. Unlike a photograph completed by one person, a collective artwork requires people to coordinate, exchange ideas, negotiate decisions and recognise one another’s contributions. It also raises questions of authorship: how can a work belong to a group while respecting the people who helped create it?
These questions returned in assignments focused on teamwork, including the idea of a photographer, writer and artist collaborating on a single story. The course also introduced Photovoice, inclusive storytelling, co-authorship, public narrative and copyright. These concepts encouraged participants to think about how stories are developed, whose perspectives shape the narrative, how contributors are credited and what happens when work moves beyond its original context.
Inclusive storytelling requires more than showing different people in an image. It also concerns who has the opportunity to create stories, whose ideas influence the narrative and how people are represented. Co-authorship asks participants to consider how creative control can be shared. Copyright introduces the question of who owns a work and how it may be used. These are practical considerations for anyone developing work intended for public audiences.
Khaleda Siddique reflected on what she learned through group assignments: “Group assignments taught me cooperation, patience, communication, compromise, and understanding different perspectives.”
The programme created opportunities for participants to learn from one another through their work and discussions. In a group with different levels of experience across photography, writing, illustration and art, collaboration allowed those differences to become resources for learning.
Learning to reflect and assess progress
The course also asked participants to consider how they were learning. Weekly deadlines created a rhythm of practice: observe, research, make and submit, before returning to a new topic. Participants had to manage their own time, make decisions about how to respond to each theme and take responsibility for developing their assignments.
Work was reviewed through a weekly editorial process. This also gave participants experience of presenting original work to an editorial platform and understanding that creative decisions affect how a story is communicated.
On the final session, participants were asked to create a video or photo essay reflecting on what they had learned. Looking back across the programme gave them an opportunity to assess their own development, identify changes in their approach and consider what they wanted to take forward.
Ajida described how the course changed her observation of the world: “Before, I sometimes ignored things around me. Now, when something catches my attention, I try to understand it more deeply—how it happened, why it happened, and what it could become. I have become especially aware of women's rights.”
That reflection gets to the heart of the educational approach. The purpose was not to memorise definitions of human rights or reproduce a particular photographic style. It was to develop habits participants could continue using: curiosity, observation, research, critical thinking, creative problem-solving and the ability to assess whether a story communicates what its creator intended.
Feedback from 56 respondents provides one indication of the change. Before the course, 57% described themselves as having some knowledge of human rights, while 27% said they knew only a little. By the end, 64% rated their understanding as excellent and another 30% as very good.
Freedom from discrimination and the right to education were each identified by 93% of respondents as the topics they had learned most from. Culture and creativity were selected by 91%, and freedom of expression by 89%.
The changes were not limited to knowledge. Some 95% of respondents said the course helped them develop their storytelling through images, 93% highlighted learning to document people respectfully, and 89% reported becoming better at observing human rights issues through photography. Every respondent said the course had increased their creativity, with 86% reporting that it had increased a lot.
Confidence also grew. 84% said they felt much more confident explaining human rights after the course, while the remaining 16% felt somewhat more confident. 91% said the course had changed the way they viewed people and human rights, and all respondents reported increased awareness of discrimination and unfair treatment.
Read alongside the assignments and student reflections, these results suggest that the programme helped participants develop a stronger understanding of human rights and new ways of exploring and communicating what those rights mean in practice.
The feedback also identified areas for improvement. Many respondents asked for more hands-on activities, real-life examples, group discussions and individual feedback on assignments. Others suggested stronger Rohingya-language translation and broader participant selection. These observations are part of the learning process too: participants were invited to evaluate the programme, and their responses can inform the design of future courses and activities.
Telling stories beyond suffering
One important lesson was that documenting human rights does not require every story to focus on violence or hardship. Participants explored themes including family life, cultural objects, education, work, democracy, relationships and everyday experiences. They were encouraged to recognise the significance of ordinary moments as well as events that attract wider attention.
Mohammed Ederis described how this changed his approach to photography: “I learned that I do not always need to photograph suffering to tell an important story. I can show people's dignity, choices, relationships, culture, and hopes. This changed the way I photograph my own community.”
That shift matters. A community’s story includes the injustices its members face, but it also includes their knowledge, creativity, relationships, aspirations and cultural life. Documenting these dimensions gives audiences a fuller understanding of the people behind the images.
Ethical storytelling means recognising that people photographed are not simply subjects. It requires attention to how they are approached, how their stories are understood and how images are eventually presented.
For Ayub Khan Dkl, the course reinforced the principles behind this approach: “I learned how to document my community through the lens of human rights, with respect, dignity, and responsibility.”
The democracy assignment offered another way to connect a human rights principle with the language and experiences of the community. It asked participants to think about democracy not only as a political concept but as something with meaning in their own lives and culture.
Art Rozzok reflected on the impact of the exercise: “My favourite assignment was Democracy. It helped me see my community from a new perspective.”
From learning to publication
The course has ended, but the work continues. Selected contributions are being prepared for Rohingyatographer Issue 4: Human Rights & Human Wrongs, which will bring together work developed by graduates alongside contributions from other members of the Collective. The publication will offer readers a fuller view of what Rohingya storytellers have been observing, questioning and creating: histories and cultural memory, restrictions and injustices, everyday relationships, creativity and hopes for the future.
Across 30 weeks, participants developed more than individual photographs, artworks and stories. They built skills, tested ideas, learnt to work together and became part of a wider creative community. Their work demonstrates what becomes possible when learning is connected to practice and contributors have opportunities to develop, select and publish stories grounded in their own experiences.
The graduates’ T-shirts carried a simple statement: “I photograph, therefore we are.” It brings the course’s central idea into focus: individual acts of observation and creation can contribute to a collective record, preserving experiences and perspectives that deserve to be seen, read and remembered.
Rohingyatographer Issue 4 on human righs is planned for publication towards the end of 2026 or early 2027. The forthcoming Rohingyatographer Photo Awards 2027 will also create another opportunity to celebrate and share visual storytelling. Follow Rohingyatographer for announcements, and subscribe to the mailing list through the website to receive our updates.
