A movie theater tent for 14,000 Syrian children living in Turkey's largest refugee camp has been set up to screen cartoons and Kurdish movies on certain days of the week. Escaping the conflict between Daesh and Kurdish groups in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, children at Suruç refugee camp watch entertaining movies at the tent established with the initiatives of the Şanlıurfa Governorship, the Şanlıurfa Culture, Education, Art and Research Foundation (ŞURKAV). Cartoons and children's movies are screened from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the week. The initiative helps children to enjoy themselves and leave days of sorrow behind.
Mahmut Aksu, the Deputy Head of Suruç Refugee Camp, told an Anadolu Agency (AA) reporter that the movie theater tent helps children to better interact with each other while adapting them to social life. A mobile movie theater vehicle is currently available in the refugee camp, where movies and cartoons are screened in a tent. Aksu said that children show great interest in the movies every day. "These children are exposed to war trauma. Their psychology has been greatly damaged. Cinema therefore helps them to motivate themselves," Aksu went on to say.
Each day, children from a different neighborhood are brought to the movie theater tent. Aksu said that they are working to allow all of the children to come and enjoy themselves. "The film screenings are very beneficial. Each day, around 2.000 children watch films there," he said. Mehmet Han Özdemir, the Head of Suruç Refugee Camp, also said that each child living in the camp has faced the darkness of war and bloody conflicts. Stressing that it takes time for children to move past their sadness, Özdemir said they want to keep refugee children away from the torments of war. "This is what Turkey is doing. We should create another world for these children. They left their homes, have confronted the war and came here. It is very difficult for them to overcome this trauma. We offer them schools, a cinema hall and psychotherapy sessions. "The refugee camp makes every effort and uses every opportunity to offer refugees better conditions," Özdemir concluded.
