Zakhem Exhibition: A Huge Thank You

Behind this glass…

Up and down these stairs…

We spent an exciting week in the heart of Shoreditch, London, in the name of art, Afghanistan, war, and healthcare.
All topics that EMERGENCY cares about and focuses on in its daily promotion of a culture of peace, which enabled an enlightening collaboration with the photographer Giulio Piscitelli.
A collaboration centred on pictures of patients admitted and treated at our Surgical Centres for War Victims in Kabul and Lashkar-Gah.

The exhibition, Zakhem | Wounds When War Comes Home, provided an opportunity to introduce visitors to an aspect of daily life in Afghanistan – constant war, denial of peace, denial of freedom, denial of human rights. All this can be seen from our hospital beds.
Our facilities have treated millions of people and Zakhem told some of their stories, giving faces, names and dignity to those who otherwise would just remain as numbers.

In 2019, Afghanistan entered its 41st year of war, a war which just last year caused over 10,000 civilian casualties.

At the private viewing, we discussed the Afghan conflict together with our President Rossella Miccio: 

.@rossmiccio “It’s really important that as many people as possible attend these events, it’s our aim to help these victims overcome the tragic effects of #War. #Zakhem | When War Comes Home exhibition helps to do that. pic.twitter.com/a522MoQdeu

— EMERGENCY (English) (@emergency_ngo) November 7, 2019

Christina Lamb, Sunday Times Chief Foreign Correspondent

.@christinalamb “It’s a great honour to be here for this exhibition that is so powerful. I’m absolutely passionate about #Afghanistan where war is very much going on even if people abroad think it isn’t. @emergency_ngo has always been there”. pic.twitter.com/xNZB7AFWjl

— EMERGENCY (English) (@emergency_ngo) November 7, 2019

and Giulio Piscitelli

“When people fight for ideals there are always people caught up in the middle”. #GiulioPiscitelli
This is the condition of #War Victims we see everyday in our hospitals in Kabul and Lashkar-Gah. #Zakhem pic.twitter.com/LHqcHbl5B9

— EMERGENCY (English) (@emergency_ngo) November 7, 2019

Sunday evening marked the end of Zakhem’s week-long run in London. Giulio Piscitelli’s photographs provided a wonderful opportunity to share our work in Afghanistan with people from all over the UK and beyond, and reminded visitors of the urgent need not to forget the conflict’s victims.

A huge thank you to all those we met last week.