The consequences of wars are omnipresent. Experiences of war shape people throughout their lives - and across generations. How differently a biography can be changed by traumatic experiences and how positive the experience of receiving aid is shown in a visually striking way in the exhibition "I Am Alive. Ten Children, Ten Wars, Ten Decades - and a Baby" by Save the Children and photographer Dominic Nahr.
The exhibition accompanying the photo book "I Am Alive" tells the stories of ten people who survived a war in the last 100 years as a child and received help from Save the Children, a children's rights organisation founded in 1919. In addition, there is a baby who, despite her uncertain future, is a symbol of hope for the children of the next 100 years.
In its anniversary year 2019, Save the Children presented the "I Am Alive" exhibition for the first time at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. To mark the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr. Bärbel Kofler, hosted a vernissage in the atrium of the ministry building, to which two of the "I Am Alive" protagonists were invited as guests of honor. Evelyne Brix, an 86-year-old survivor of the Second World War who lives in Berlin, experienced the power of visual narratives of children's war experiences at this politically relevant location. And the fact that 105-year-old Erich Karl, survivor of the First World War and oldest contemporary witness of Save the Children’s emergency aid, was also able to attend the "I Am Alive" vernissage was a historically exceptional moment. And so the message of the centennial project rose from the exhibits into the room: here I am, this is my story, "I Am Alive"!
From 4 to 22 May 2022, the exhibition was on show at Meldorf Cathedral, and in Geneva from 20 June to 6 July 2022 during the 50th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council at the Palace of the League of Nations - the place where Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, a child rights organisation that is now active worldwide, initiated the formulation of the children's rights of today's UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the then League of Nations in 1924. At the exhibition opening in Geneva, the "I Am Alive" protagonist Vichuta Ly, who survived the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, was greeted as guest of honour by UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.