BEIRUT: After a visit to Beirut’s Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp Tuesday, a group of Lebanese and Palestinian actors are pledging to present a new and more honest portrayal of the country’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps.

“Through plays and movies, people throughout Lebanon will know the reality of the Palestinian refugee camps,” said Jean Kassis, who heads Lebanon’s Actors Union.

Kassis, along with several other actors, took part in the visit to Bourj al- Barajneh as part of UNRWA’s ‘Dignity for All’ project, which is funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department.

Walking in the camp’s narrow streets, Kassis told The Daily Star that most Lebanese have a misconception of the situation inside Palestinian camps.

“After decades of misunderstanding, I hope this ‘dark image’ of the camp will be removed from people’s minds,” he said.

While the entrance of Bourj al- Barajneh is crowded with posters for the Palestine Liberation Organization, Islamic Movement of Hamas and other armed Palestinian factions, most of the streets inside the camp show that the ambitions of Palestinian children are far from political.

On nearly every street in the camp, there’s graffiti of the names of famous soccer players, like the Brazilian champion, Ronaldo, and their team numbers.

This enthusiasm for sports was further strengthened last year when three young Palestinian students formed three rugby teams.

Earlier this year, one of the Palestinian rugby teams played against the American University of Beirut, in a match that was also was also part of the Dignity for All project.

“This is a visit to reiterate that Palestinians, who are facing various challenges in Lebanon, deserve to live in dignity,” said Kassis.

Describing a visit to Bourj al-Barajneh camp two years ago, Kassis said he was deeply influenced from a short conversation with a young Palestinian boy.

“When I asked him, ‘What are your dreams?’ He said, ‘I dream that one day I would be able to play soccer somewhere without being kicked out of the area.’”

“This conversation made me write a new television series made of 13 episodes, called ‘A cycle [time] in the camp’ in Arabic, so that people would know that this refugee camp is not filled with terrorism but with normal people like us,” Kassis explained.

Several clashes in 1975 between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese developed into an all-out civil war in Lebanon, during which the Palestinian refugee camps, like other areas in the country, suffered greatly.

According to Bahaa Hassoun, director of services at the UNRWA Lebanon, who was briefing the visitors about the camp, there were only 4,000 Palestinians in Bourj al-Barajneh before the civil war. “Today there are almost 20,000 people with worsening humanitarian conditions,” said Hassoun, as he gestured toward water pipes hanging suspended in the air.

Hassoun also said that Palestinian refugees, upon their arrival in the camp in 1948, were tightly controlled and governed by the Internal Security Forces. “Building anything in the camp required the authorization of the ISF back then,” said Hassoun, in reference of the period between 1950 and 1968, when the Cairo Agreement transferred the authority of Palestinian camps from the ISF to the PLO.

“Unfortunately, the construction boom that took place after that period was unorganized and lacked basic engineering rules,” Hassoun explained.

As the group of actors toured the camp on the outskirts of Beirut, UNRWA officer Mahmoud Abdullah told The Daily Star that their visit is one way to begin changing how Lebanese view the Palestinian camps in the country.

“On one hand, you have armed Palestinians in the camp and you have Lebanese refusing to grant Palestinians basic rights on the other” said Abdullah.

But through a series of activities like the visit, he said, UNRWA’s project is trying to bring the two sides together so that they understand each other’s concerns.

Dozens of movies from different parts of the world have portrayed Palestinian refugee camps as havens for terrorists and fugitives. “This is exactly what that has to change … because what everyone is seeing in the media about the camps is violence,” said Abdullah.

But, he said, he is confident that the actors’ tour of the camp a real step toward fostering better understanding between Palestinians and Lebanese.