“We are still here”: The taro leaf as a metaphor for the Rohingya experience

Latest News26 August 2025

Two MSF staff members reflect on a friendship and creative partnership that started in the wake of a devastating displacement crisis in Myanmar that continues to this day for Rohingya refugees.

Ruhul Amin was fleeing a targeted campaign of extreme violence in his home country of Myanmar, along with 700,000 other Rohingya people, when he met Arunn Jegan in 2017 in Bangladesh. Both worked at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and shared a brief interaction that began an enduring partnership.

Eight years later, the two friends and colleagues are collaborating on projects that challenge the boundaries of what it means to provide care. Medical care will always be essential, but surviving isn’t the same as living. And the Rohingya struggle to do both.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Rohingya refugees — Ruhul Amin and Arunn Jegan met eight years ago in Bangladesh, when Ruhul was fleeing Myanmar with his family. Their friendship planted the seed that grew the taro leaf initiative.

Ruhul and Arunn set out to create a project rooted in people’s existence, culture, and stories, to help Rohingya people express themselves, resist erasure, and stay connected to who they are. In the workshops, the taro leaf began to emerge as a recurring symbol. Because of its waxy nature and how water rolls off the leaf, “it is symbolic of how the world makes Rohingya stateless and tries to leave no mark of us,” says Ruhul. “But we are still here. And we leave a mark.”

In collaboration with Australian and Rohingya artists, they formed the Creative Advocacy Partnership (CAP). Below, they discuss their creative partnership and ongoing friendship.

A momentary exchange amid a crisis

Arunn: When I met Ruhul, he and his family had just crossed the border into Bangladesh with only the clothes on their backs. I didn’t know him, but he told me he worked for MSF in Myanmar, so I felt a connection. It was heartbreaking to hear how he lost everything.

I pointed him to the office where he could collect his salary. He told me he needed water, and we went our separate ways.

Ruhul: When I met Arunn, I didn’t see him properly. I saw a dark-skinned man who said he lived in Australia. I didn’t remember his name or know he was Tamil, a community which also faced atrocities. My mind was focused on survival. Where would we sleep? How would we eat? I was completely exhausted. I felt like I was floating in an ocean, not sure where I could go. I thought I would go home, but little did I know that eight years later I still wouldn’t be able to return to my homeland.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Rohingya refugee fleeing into Bangladesh — Rohingya who crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing violence in Rakhine state, Myanmar that started on 25 August. This massive influx, coming on top of 75,000 people who have arrived since violence began in October 2016, represents one of the largest influxes ever of Rohingyas into Bangladesh. 2017

In 2017, MSF was one of the first NGOs to start working in the new camps that were created following the mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar. Within two weeks, we built up a network of community health workers. We had a simple job: take sick people to the hospital and tell people where to find medical aid. People were arriving with gunshot wounds, knife cuts, and untreated infections. There were no toilets, shelters, or roads.

I remember three women lying unconscious in the mud, flies all over them. I paid community members 600 taka (about $6) from my own pocket to get them to the MSF hospital. We only had human ambulances—people carrying the sick on makeshift bamboo stretchers or their backs.

If we stay connected to our culture, our identity, our relationships—they can survive as well. Relationships are the most important medicine. Ruhul Amin, a Rohingya MSF staff member

Arunn: It was raw. It reminded me of my own community’s displacement: Hundreds of thousands of families carrying whatever they could; scores of people with gunshot wounds; the smell of smoke still fresh on their clothes; and families desperate to find their children after being separated in the chaos. We were building hospitals in six weeks, water pumps in days. There was little time to stop and feel anything.

Ruhul: I remember feeling something. When I saw Arunn again years later, I realised what it was: the power of relationships building over time.

“I didn’t call it statelessness. I just called it life”

Arunn: I met Ruhul again in 2019. That’s when I felt like our connection grew. He once told me that it took four years before he felt safe enough to tell me what it really meant to be stateless.

Ruhul: I didn’t call it statelessness. I just called it life. I didn’t expect education. I didn’t think we were allowed to get medical care. I didn’t expect freedom of movement. I thought education and opportunities were only for some people. Our imagination for what our lives could be was very narrow. Only when we left our homeland did we understand how deeply we had been denied our rights. That realisation is painful. It doesn’t just hurt your body. It hurts your mind.

Nurul first learned weaving in 1991 as a refugee in Moricha, Bangladesh, and then again upon returning to Myanmar — only to be expelled in 2017. “My father had some skill in weaving, so I tried to learn from him. He used to work on commission pieces. I wanted to carry that on.” His work is a message to the world: “We have no land under our feet, but with the help of others, we can keep our culture alive — and one day regain our freedom. Unless we return to our homeland, our culture will fade. Without art, we are not fully Rohingya. When water falls on a taro leaf, we hope it leaves a mark. This is our mark — especially for when we return.”

Kolim began woodworking at age 10 in Arakan, learning from a local carpenter to survive. “We started this work out of necessity, to put food on the table, many people buy my furniture for weddings, I also make lots of baby cradles”. Through carving the taro Kolim shares a message: “Our life is like water on a taro leaf, we have no ground beneath us, no place to stand. But by showing this publicly, across the world, we leave a mark that cannot be thrown away.”

Senu was trained in weaving through a vocational program in Myanmar when she was 23 years old. She is used to making lungis, scarves, pillow covers, and bedsheets. Her embroidery carries both cultural memory and quiet resistance. “We never thought the Rakhine and Burmese governments would drive us away, the taro leaf is our document, and we are the water. The leaf remains in Myanmar, and like water, we’ve been forced to flow elsewhere. If we show this to the world, maybe our mark will remain.”

Sahat began photography in Myanmar in 2014, first photographing football games. But after the 2017 military violence forced him to flee to Bangladesh, his focus shifted. He began documenting life in the refugee camps — not just to bear witness, but to make the world feel.An award-winning photojournalist, Sahat now runs Rohingya Phographer, a global platform amplifying Rohingya voices through photography. “The taro leaf in my photo shows the world that our crisis continues — that we are still here. The world is big enough to carry us, but we are treated like water on a taro leaf: never given a place to rest. I want the world to know that Rohingya people are human beings. We exist. We deserve peace, knowledge, and dignity — just like everyone else.”

Nuru’s curiosity led her to learn different craft practices from everyone around her — farmers, makers, weavers. “I asked them to teach me. I learned from my grandparents, who used basketry to make all kinds of farming tools. Since I had no elder brother, I learned everything — even ploughing. My husband was a refugee in 1992. He taught me how to make stools. And I kept learning.” She now sees this work as an act of cultural preservation. “If we don’t pass this on to our children, it will disappear — and with it, our Rohingya name. This is how I keep my grandparents alive. This is how I leave my mark. Like water on a taro leaf, nothing remains unless we make an effort. If we lose our culture, we disappear.”

“We are still here. And we leave a mark”

Ruhul: A symbol began to emerge in the CAP workshops: the taro leaf. A Rohingya proverb “honsu-fathar phani” says that water doesn’t leave a mark on the taro leaf.

Arunn: The surface of a taro leaf is waxy, causing water to bead and roll off without leaving a trace.

Ruhul: It is symbolic of how the world makes Rohingya stateless and tries to leave no mark of us. But we are still here. And we leave a mark.

Arunn: Rohingya adults, children, and artists made their own taro leaves. Watching people transform through creativity was profound. A Rohingya ceramicist told us his home was destroyed eight years ago, but he only fled recently. The weight of that slow erasure is unbearable. And yet, in this shared space, people began to open up. Even the tensions between religious and ethnic identities began to soften. That’s the power of creating together.

In a place where people are denied nationality, movement, even medical care, the simple act of shaping clay, weaving bamboo, or telling a story becomes an act of resistance and dignity. It says: We are still here. We still feel. We still matter. Ruhul Amin, a Rohingya MSF staff member

Ruhul: But it’s not just about expressing ourselves. It’s about survival. NGOs will leave. Funding will dry up. We don’t want to rely on NGOs for the rest of our lives; we bear shame in being dependent on others. But if we stay connected to our culture, our identity, our relationships—they can survive as well. Relationships are the most important medicine.

Art can be an act of resistance

Arunn: Ruhul told me he feels like the light inside him is dimming. Not because he’s given up, but because the weight of disconnection—from movement, from care, from opportunity—is getting heavier. I am hearing the word “destiny” and “fate” a lot more than “hope” and “future.”

Ruhul: I am not alone—many in the camps feel this. For us, this project is not a side activity; it’s a way of keeping the light alive. We still face massive health challenges, with food rations being cut, unexplained fevers, and poor living conditions. The USAID and UK funding cuts are crippling our future—scores of health care centres have shut down. Even my son needed urgent care, and no one would cover the surgery.

Across the world, Rohingya people are making their mark by practising, strengthening, and passing on their cultural traditions—resisting erasure despite being ‘stateless’ and denied fundamental rights. These creative acts are not only cultural expressions of pride, but also a form of survival and acts of resistance. As one Rohingya participant put it: “If we don’t keep practicing our crafts, our culture will disappear—and we will lose our connection to Arakan.”

Arunn: This isn’t about replacing medical aid with creative advocacy. It’s about recognising that without both, what is left of a people quickly becomes unrecognisable. Holistic care acknowledges the human need for recognition, connection, and belonging—not just clean bandages or nutrition rations. That’s where humanitarian work must go next.

Ruhul: In a place where people are denied nationality, movement, even medical care, the simple act of shaping clay, weaving bamboo, or telling a story becomes an act of resistance and dignity. It says: We are still here. We still feel. We still matter.

“We are still here”: The taro leaf as a metaphor for the Rohingya experience