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Success Against the Siege
Her first success story began after securing the top spot at an exhibition hosted by the city of Duma in Eastern Ghota. Her painting won her $50, allowing her to buy a mobile phone that she still uses to document her artwork today, aspiring to convey her message to the world.
Samah Labouda (35 years old), a mother of six children, participated in the "Spring and Book 2" exhibition organized by the "House of Wisdom" library in Duma in August 2015. She continues to depict images of the reality of the Syrian revolution, alongside others portraying cartoon characters closer to children's hearts, as she told Enab Baladi.

Paintings from Beneath the Rubble
"Our house was damaged in the shelling, and my paintings ended up under the rubble. However, I managed to salvage some of them and started anew," the thirty-year-old mother describes her experiences over the past few months. She indicates that she carries her remaining drawings, praised by most of those she communicated with from Enab Baladi in Ghota, inside a bag that travels with her wherever she is displaced, as she expressed.
"Umm Akram," as her neighbors call her, believes that her drawings release the emotions within her, finding in them a means to express the situation she lives in alongside the people of Ghota. She hopes that her message will reach "those with active minds and consciences," even though she finds it challenging to secure drawing supplies due to their high prices.
Labouda started drawing at the age of three, considering it the time when she could distinguish people and the reality around her. What was once a time of innocence has turned into a life of 'bombing, patience, fear, and anticipation of the unknown.' She sees her drawings as a way to compensate for what her children are going through, especially after the death of her eldest son, Akram, in the bombing of Ghota.
Despite not completing her education and marrying at 13, Umm Akram remained committed to honing her talent and teaching it to her children. Her son Imran is an artist and calligrapher like his father, while Radwan, in the fifth grade, excels in drawing maps. Umm Akram also strives to develop the drawings of her son Ayman, in the second grade, and the twin's Salam and Bayan, two and a half years old.
Paintings Immortalizing Events
Lubouda is not the only one who has highlighted the Syrian revolution through art in Eastern Ghota and aspires to convey it to the world. Eastern Ghota has embraced many similar experiences, notably that of Majida Salam, a woman in her fifties from the city of Duma. She exhibited her paintings last March for the first time in her life and affirmed in a previous conversation with Enab Baladi that she would continue painting to exhibit her artwork anew 'after the triumph of the revolution.'"
The thirty-year-old painter, currently living in the city of Duma, aspires to exhibit her paintings both within and outside of Syria. Her goal is to draw attention to 'a woman who suffered and was deprived of her education, yet she is capable of achieving what those who had the chance to learn couldn't achieve,' as she describes it.