“The Caravan,” a play based on testimonies of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, will begin touring the Bekaa Valley, then western Lebanon and the rest of the country, starting June 21. The play is an initiative by Beirut DC, an organization that supports independent Arab filmmaking, in partnership with Sawa for Development and Aid, the collective Clown Me In and the Theatre Temoin. The European Union program Drama, Diversity and Development, the Goethe Institute and UNICEF have provided funding.

The idea for “The Caravan” was born from Sabine Choucair's work with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Choucair, a social therapist, uses storytelling and theater workshops in her work with Syrian refugees of all ages and both genders in need of morale support. According to therapist and educator Johanna Slivinske, storytelling is a “vital component of the assessment and intervention process.”

“At the end of January 2016, I was working with groups of 20 to 25 people doing social therapy,” Choucair told Al-Monitor. “I always started with them telling personal stories. Then I took the ones I felt were important to tell and recorded them in a tent with a sound artist. It took a lot of time, because a lot of people didn't know how to read or write, and we had to record while a lot of people, curious to know what was going on, kept interrupting the recordings. We then edited everything.”

Choucair posted 20 of the 250 stories she recorded online for people around the world to hear. From among the 20, she selected 8 to be performed in a touring play, “The Caravan.”