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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Wijdan Rashid is a dentist, but his real love is art, and he shares his skills with refugee children in Germany, teaching them how to paint and draw.
Rashid, 53, from the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria (Rojava), has had a passion for drawing since childhood.
"I used to draw cartoon characters and loved it very much. In our time, there was Sasuke, Grendizer, Adnan and Lina. We were all children who loved movies. The cartoons inspired me to draw those characters," Rashid told Rudaw's Zinar Shino.
Rashid, a father of four, teaches art to children living in refugee camps.
"Once or twice a week, I give drawing lessons to children, according to my time. There are about 15 to 20 children. For example, this is a painting made by a child who is about eight years old. I explain it to them in a very simple way. For example, I say how to do this work, from Latin numbers one, two, three. These are Afghan, Russian, and Ukrainian refugee children," Rashid said.
During his dental studies at Aleppo University, he drew expressive caricatures about the life and situation of his fellow students.
"People generally enjoy them, especially caricatures, because they have activity and dynamism, and humans connect with them. They are not like regular paintings that you look at and might forget later. They must have an impact on the human mind. Sometimes they were political, sometimes social," he said.
He also draws inspiration from the forms and geometric structures of stones.
"There are two ways: either the idea comes to my mind first and then I find the stone according to that idea and work on it, or sometimes you see a stone that looks like something. Based on that, either an idea is created from it, or the idea came before or comes later," he said.
Since 2015, Rashid and his family have been living in Germany, where he continues to hold exhibitions.
"I live in peace and security in Germany, and it has protected my children," he said.
But being away from the homeland also comes with sacrifice. "I really miss the history I had created in Qamishli."
Zinar Shino contributed to this article
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