I Show The Contrast Between The Two Worlds That Our Children Currently Live In By Combining Photos (29 Pics)

Hello everyone. I am Uğur Gallenkuş, an Istanbul-based digital artist. I create collages juxtaposing two images including the work of some of today’s most intrepid photojournalists.

By contrasting images of different realities, I aim to show a range of intensely relevant issues affecting today’s children: from war to poverty, hunger, child trafficking, child labor, child soldiers, immigration, healthcare, and education. Violation of basic children's rights compelled me to publish this book that shows two sides of humanity that we have collectively created.

One question we all at some point ask, especially when we understand what it means to be a parent, is this: What legacy are we leaving the children of the world?

The book takes the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, enforced since 1990, as its foundation, aiming through these 50 collages to convey the essential rights each child should have, regardless of their circumstances or geography. Each collage represents one of the U.N.-determined rights of children and is accompanied by statistics indicating the pressing realities putting children in danger worldwide.

With this book, I hope to inspire a shift in the consciousness of adults, inviting us all to leave our greed and egos behind and make the world a better place for today’s children.

This book is dedicated to all children in the world: poor or rich, in developed countries or undeveloped countries, educated or uneducated, hungry or obese, or dead or living.

This book is a CALL TO ACTION!

More info: Instagram | Facebook | ugurgallenkus.com

#1 Bathing At War, Bathing At Peace

Salem Saoody, 30, is bathing his daughter Layan (L) and his niece Shaymaa 5 (R) in the only remaining piece from their damaged house, which is the bathtub, after the Israeli airstrike. 2015, Gaza.

Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar

#2 I See You

A Rohingya refugee girl looks next to newly arrived refugees who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in Ukhiya on September 6, 2017. With children making up around 60 percent of the Rohingya that have fled into Bangladesh, many below 18 years old arrived into the makeshift tents highly traumatized after seeing family members killed and homes set on fire.

Editorial Photo: K.M. Asad

#3 Wounded Girl With A Pearl Earring

A wounded Syrian girl receives treatment at a makeshift hospital in Kafr Batna following bombardments on the Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on February 21, 2018.

Editorial Photo: Ammar Suleiman

#4 Children Are Children First - Seesaw

A Syrian boy sits on a destroyed tank in the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on March 27, 2015.

Editorial Photo: Yasin Akgül

#5 School-Bound

A Syrian schoolgirl crossing through a damaged wall outside her school in the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on March 25, 2015. Islamic State (ISIS) fighters were driven out of Kobane on January 26 by Kurdish and allied forces.

Editorial Photo: Yasin Akgül

#6 Children Are Children First - Swings

A Syrian boy plays on a swing in a destroyed building in the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of Damascus, as Muslims celebrate the third day of the Eid al-Adha holiday on September 3, 2017.

Editorial Photo: Amer Almohibany

#7 Profession Before Education

This is Shaila, a 15-year-old sex worker. Due to her stepmother's torture, she ran away from home and tried to go to her aunt's in Dhaka, Bangladesh. "Somehow I managed to get a seat on a bus which was going to Dhaka. There was too much traffic, so my bus was stuck in one place for hours. It was getting darker and I did not know what to do. When I got off the bus, it was midnight, 12 am. I was so afraid that I asked every single female passenger to give me a shelter for one night. I was crying and did not know what to do. No one believed me. If on that day, someone would have given me a shelter for just one night, my life would not have fallen into hell," she said. During the journey, she was kidnapped by a group and she found herself in a brothel.

Editorial Photo: GMB Akash

#8 Children Are Children First - Skiing

Children bear the brutal cost of endless war. As 10 children from the same family were walking to school last year, they came across an unexploded mortar bomb—a common sight in Afghanistan, where war still rages between the Taliban and US-backed national forces. Not realizing what it was or the dangers it posed, the curious kids picked up the device and took it to show to an aunt. And then it exploded. Three children and the older relative were killed, and the remaining seven lost at least one limb each.

Editorial Photo: Noorullah Shirzada

#9 Tin Soldier

Newly released child soldiers wait in a line for their registration during the release ceremony in Yambio, South Sudan, on February 7, 2018. More than 300 child soldiers, including 87 girls, have been released in South Sudan's war-torn region of Yambio under a program to help reintegrate them into society, the UN said on Februar y 7, 2018.

Editorial Photo: Stefanie Glinski

#10 Earning Play

Children at a brick factory in Fatullah near Dakka in Bangladesh. For every thousand bricks they carry, they earn the equivalent of 0.9 USD.

Editorial Photo: GMB Akash

#11 Until Every Girl Goes To School

Pakistani girls attend a school attacked twice by the Taliban. Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, 2013.

Editorial Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez

#12 A Rohingya Refugee Mother And Child

A Rohingya refugee mother and child's exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh. According to the UNHCR, more than 720,000 Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar to cross the border and reach Bangladesh.

Editorial Photo: K.M. Asad

#13 Best Friends

Noha Abu Mesleh, 5 years old, is seen inside of her home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar

#14 Children Are Children First - Balloons

Syrian children run with balloons past heavily damaged buildings in the neighbourhood of Jobar on the eastern outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus on April 9, 2016.

Editorial Photo: Amer Almohibany

#15 Waiting For A Chance

Palestinian children waiting to fill jerrycans and bottles with drinking water from public taps at the Dair Al Balah refugee camp in central Gaza Strip in 2014.

Editorial Photo: Wissam Nassar

#16 Peaceful Sleep

A father with his child in the intensive care unit of the district hospital in Mora, Far North Region, Cameroon. The diseases most prevalent among African children are malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition. February 20, 2019.

Editorial Photo: Pierre-Yves Bernard/MSF

#17 Duality View

A refugee girl observes the sunset at Dibaga Refugee Camp. Iraqis caught in Islamic State crossfire flee to refugee camps near Mosul. The conflict has left behind deep scars in the psyche of children and it has reversed more than two decades of expansion of access to education. August, Iraq, 2016.

Editorial Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez

#18 Red Lipstick, Ocean Eyes

She is Rosina. She is a 14-year-old sex worker in Bangladesh.

Editorial Photo: GMB Akash

#19 Not All Heroes Wear Medals

Syrian men carrying babies make their way through the rubble of destroyed buildings following a reported airstrike on the rebel-held Salihin neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo on September 11, 2016.

Editorial Photo: Ameer Alhalbi

#20 Love And War

An orphaned boy walks past a wall with drawings depicting rocket-propelled grenade launchers in Bol, Chad, on October 13, 2018.

Editorial Photo: Marco Gualazzini

#21 Crossing The Red Sea

A Rohingya refugee woman holds her son, seen after arriving with a boat to the nearest beach to the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, Shah Porir Dip Island Teknaf, Bangladesh, September 14, 2017.

Editorial Photo: KM Asad

#22 Salvation

A child with dengue fever holds a doctor's hand in Jalozai, Pakistan, 2012.

Editorial Photo: Diego Ibarra Sanchez

#23 Born Fighter

In Hajjah City in Yemen, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) has been supporting the maternity ward since August 2015. This newborn already has a big story behind him: his mother, Asima, 21 years old, suffered from eclampsia from her fifth month of pregnancy. In her eighth month, she had severe headaches and swelling in her limbs. The doctors had to perform a cesarean to save her life and that of her baby. August 13, 2018.

Editorial Photo: Mohammed Almahdi/MSF

#24 Lunch Break

Two child laborers eating their lunch during a break at the factory where they work. Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Editorial Photo: GMB Akash

#25 Billowing Smoke, Bursting Bubbles

Smoke rises from the rebel-controlled district of Jobar in eastern Damascus following the airstrikes of Syrian regime forces on April 2, 2015.

Editorial Photo: Ammar Sulaiman

#26

Kanyaruchinya refugee camp in Goma in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on October 20, 2012.

Editorial Photo: Marco Gualazzini

#27 Dedication

In 2014, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) assisted the JDJ Memorial Hospital in Monrovia with maternal and pediatric care under consideration of the Ebola outbreak. In 2015, MSF opened a Barnesville Junction Hospital in Monrovia to address gaps in pediatric care during the Ebola epidemic. The 92-bed hospital continues to provide specialized care for children coming from a large impoverished urban area with conditions such as malaria and severe acute malnutrition. It also serves as a training site for Liberian nurses, medical interns, and nurse anesthetists. February 4, 2015.

Editorial Photo: Yann Libessart/MSF

#28 Food For Thought

Rohingya refugee children waiting for food at Hakimpara refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar.

Editorial Photo: K.M. Asad

#29 Labor Of Love

The hands of a Bangladeshi child laborer working in heavy industry.

Editorial Photo: KM Asad