Posing in front of handcrafted stage sets as if starring in a school play, refugee children from Burundi and Syria re-enacted scenes of escape from their home countries while others dressed up for their dream jobs.

The colorful images are part of a three-month photo project by French photographer Patrick Willocq, working on assignment with international charity Save the Children and U.K. education publisher Pearson to highlight the plight of refugee kids. Frustrated that most photos of refugee children in mainstream media depict images of despair and hopelessness, he decided to let the children tell their own stories in their own way.

"By humanizing personal stories, I thought the world would take notice of the breadth and complexity of children seeking refuge," Willocq said in a statement to The WorldPost. "The idea was to show real children and tell their real stories, by involving the subjects, listening to them, creating a dcor together with them, by staging their lives and their desires."