The first thing you note when you meet Khowther is that she speaks really good English. She is clearly educated – ‘Damascus University’ she says when I ask her, ‘and then as a teacher at Technical College.’ Now, here in Akre she runs an art club, Castle Art, which works with children to turn the bare walls of a former Saddam Hussein prison into bright colourful murals. The project, the brain-child of Lucy from RISE Foundation who now pay Khowther a salary which supports the s

We wish that this was only a metaphor: thousands of refugees living in former prisons. Sadly, it is the harsh reality. With nowhere else to go, disenfranchised and dispossessed, many of the IDPs and refugees have been housed by the authorities in grim former Saddam Hussein-era prisons. However, flowers are starting to bloom on the concrete. Doves are flying around sentinel towers and pastoral scenes unrolling along perimeter walls. Armed only with brushes and paint, Lucy and