TIME starts year-long multimedia project documenting the lives of Syrian refugee mothers and their babies

A reporting team from TIME will spend the next year intimately documenting the first year of life of four babies born inside refugee camps in Thessaloniki, Greece, in a bid to encourage audiences to engage with the issues surrounding the ongoing refugee crisis.

Multimedia project Finding Home, launched on 19 December, aims to give people an insight into the reality of day-to-day life for Syrian mothers as they get by with no hot water, flushing toilets, or space to play with their children.

"People's eyes tend to glaze over when they hear about what is going on with the refugee crisis – we thought the only way to get through the numbers is to create a personal story that people could relate to," said Aryn Baker of TIME's Africa Bureau, who makes up the project's reporting team alongside videographer Francesca Trianni and freelance photojournalist Lynsey Addario.

"We wanted to tell a story that would make people pay attention. Usually at the end of a story, you shut your notebook and walk away, you never get to go back, but we are invested in the story long-term."

TIME Cover: 2017: The Year Ahead, by photojournalist Lynsey Addario for TIME

The team has been telling the story of the refugees' journey over the past year, but will now spend the next 12 months reporting on Finding Home, in print, online and on social media, supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

"We really tried to find women that people could connect to," said TIME videographer Francesca Trianni, who explained the four mothers they are following all have different stories to tell, from Illham, a mother of five children, to Nour, a first-time mum.

"On social media, we want audiences to feel like they are getting updates from a friend - for example, we are going to tailor our Instagram account to have a conversational tone, like the viewer is following their everyday life in real time."

The team found the four mothers they wanted to focus on back in September, chatting to multiple pregnant women within the Greek camps and liaising with hospital staff to find women who were able to take part.

But this proved to be challenging, as Syria's conservative cultural norms made it difficult to find women that were willing to be photographed or written about in print, explained Addario.

"One of the things a lot of people don't understand is how much time a journalist has to invest in a story like this in order to get intimate access – there is such an incredible difference between the first time we met these women and their families and now," she said.

"It is not all about the end game, sometimes we just have to see where the story goes or where the family takes us with it."

Baker, Addario and Trianni reporting on scene at Papageorgiou General Hospital in Thessaloniki, Greece

Indeed, as all four mothers, Taimaa, Suad, Nour and Illham, are waiting to be relocated to European countries, Baker, Addario and Trianni are ready to follow them wherever they end up, and will be visiting them at various times throughout the year while working on other projects back home.

"One of the things we hope for is to touch people and make them care about someone so far away," said Addario.

"With Syrian refugees, we see and hear the numbers all the time, but it is very hard to access those people and to access what exactly they are feeling, so we are trying to make them human.

"The feedback so far has been really interesting for this project, because people are immediately asking what they can do, how they can help or get involved. It gives them a place to channel their frustration with the international crisis."

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