Furthest Behind

“We speak but our voices aren’t taken seriously”: Perspectives on development challenges from those living in extreme poverty in Lebanon was made possible in part by a partnership between the United Nations in Lebanon and the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs and the American University of Beirut, as part of a study titled, “Localising the Sustainable Development Goals: Listening to the Voices of the ‘Furthest-behind’.” This study explored the views and perspectives of communities from two locations - Muhamra, Akkar Governorate, and Hay el Tanak, North Governorate Participants were first encouraged to explore the current and development challenges they faced in their communities. Participants were asked to individually draw or write the challenges they experience in their day to day lives. These were then presented back to the group and clustered together according to similar challenges. Open ended questions were used with an emphasis on exploring interviewees’ experiences and stories. Interviews were conducted with translation and audio recorded.

Script and story development

In the pre-production phase of Further Behind, we took on the task of crafting a story rooted in the workshops held with participants from the Syrian refugee communities in northern Lebanon’s camps. Following these sessions, we worked with the rich, detailed drawings produced by the participants, which vividly captured the daily struggles of life in the camps ranging from a long list of challenges like scarce resources to overcrowded conditions. To shape these insights into a cohesive narrative, we conducted extensive research, ultimately building the story around two children from the camps whose enduring friendship unfolds as they grow up together. The film centers on the memory of one character, now an adult, reflecting on his childhood in the camp as his wife prepares to give birth to their first child. Through his recollections, we follow the two young friends as they invent creative solutions to improve life in their harsh surroundings undaunted by a reality that resists easy fixes, they persistently strive to make things better.