A multicolored kite floats against the blue sky, held by 5-year-old Sohrab and his sister, both trying to get it to fly higher. Their friends, laughing and shouting in Farsi, also run around with their kites, wrists moving in sharp jerks to ensure that the kites can still rise, despite the weak summer wind.

The scene seems like a flashback to Kabul’s freedom days, with its internationally known kite runners. Yet the scene is not Afghanistan, but Turkey, and these Afghan children are in forced exile in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

While most adults rested over the early afternoon heat during Ramadan this past June, a group of young Afghan refugees met twice a week to attend a kite workshop held by a group of Turkish and international volunteers. The workshop was designed by Martina Dominici, an Italian political researcher who came to Turkey through the European Voluntary Service and spent her summer volunteering with Turkish nongovernmental organizations to learn more about the Syrian refugee crisis.

Arriving in Gaziantep, a city that is home to more than half of the country's whole refugee community, Dominici noticed there was a need to develop more projects for Afghan refugees. “Compared to Syrians, there seem to be less projects for Afghans, but this is mainly due to their fewer overall number and the state of emergency for Syria,” she told Al-Monitor.