Neil in Jordan
“I realise I have stopped thinking about political divides, about freedom fighters or terrorists, about dictators and armies. I am thinking only of the fragility of civilisation. The lives the refugees had were our lives: they owned corner shops and sold cars, they farmed or worked in factories or owned factories or sold insurance. None of them expected to be running for their lives, leaving everything they had because they had nothing to come back to, making smuggled border crossings, walking past the dismembered corpses of other people who had tried to make the crossing but had been caught or been betrayed.”
In May 2014 Neil Gaiman travelled to Jordan with fashion designer Georgina Chapman to spend time with Syrian refugees, gathering first hand testimony and witnessing UNHCR’s frontline work. The stories, photos and videos they collected helped to shape a series of communication, fundraising and advocacy initiatives that built support, empathy and understanding of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Neil generated extensive media from his mission, writing a feature piece for The Guardian that was syndicated across multiple territories, sharing photo galleries, films and interviews, including on Buzzfeed and Christiane Amanpour.