25 August 2025: Marking eight years since more than 700,000 Rohingya people fled to Bangladesh, the launch of a taro leaf symbol today highlights the community’s refusal to be forgotten.
Inspired by the Rohingya proverb “Hoñsu Fathar Faaní” (“water leaves no trace on a taro leaf”), which speaks to the way water slides off the leaf leaving no mark – a metaphor for invisibility and displacement. Rohingya artists, diaspora leaders, and allies came together to create a set of taro leaf symbols through workshops. The taro leaf symbol will be shared with community groups, institutions and advocacy organisations worldwide to mark Rohingya presence and resistance against erasure.
This work led to the creation of the Creative Advocacy Partnership (CAP), reframing humanitarian engagement to move beyond aid alone and support Rohingya-led advocacy and strength-based community engagement. CAP’s message is clear: the Rohingya are not faceless victims but a people with culture, dignity and aspirations; the taro leaf symbol speaks to the emotional and political toll of statelessness; and after eight years in limbo, the community is calling for durable solutions — not just shelter, but a future with rights and dignity.
The taro leaf has become a powerful metaphor for the Rohingya experience of statelessness — where people are denied nationality, excluded from basic rights, and pushed to the margins by countries that refuse to accept them. It speaks to the daily reality of dehumanisation: living in limbo, barred from education, work, and movement, while being treated as though they leave no mark on the world. 99% of Rohingya currently live under these containment policies, the majority of whom are around Asia Pacific.
Yet the community continues to endure and assert its identity, carrying this symbol across campaigns and cultural spaces as a reminder: “We are still here. We still matter.”
The symbol invites the international community to see the Rohingya as not as faceless victims of tragedy, but people with a rich cultural heritage, people with full and complex humanity, dreams of better lives for their children; a culture that is at risk of erasure as they live in limbo even after eight years. The taro leaf calls for understanding of both the emotional and political toll of statelessness and to respond not just with empathy, but with action.
The release comes one month ahead of the opening of the Meeras Pavilion by the City of Sydney on 25 September, an interactive artwork and cultural space dedicated to Rohingya culture, storytelling and solidarity.
A growing number of NGOs and Rohingya institutions are actively supporting the release of this symbol, including Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia, Amnesty International Australia, Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, Refugee Council of Australia, Australian Global Health Alliance, and Save the Children Australia.
“The taro leaf captures both the fragility and resilience of the Rohingya people. At a time when their culture risks being forgotten, these symbols insist that the Rohingya cannot be erased—that their culture and humanity leave a mark the world must recognise,” said Jennifer Tierney, executive director, MSF Australia, one of the partners for this project.
Dr Graham Thom, Advocacy Coordinator for the Refugee Council of Australia says: “The taro leaf speaks to the quiet strength of the Rohingya people. Eight years after so many were forced to flee, their resilience remains clear, but so does the need for lasting solutions. When I visited Cox’s Bazar in June, I saw first-hand the urgent need for continued support, protection, and hope for the future.”
Jana Favero, Deputy CEO, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre “The taro leaf is a powerful reminder of the strength of the Rohingya people. It symbolises their resilience in the face of profound injustice. At ASRC we stand with the Rohingya community in their call for recognition, rights and a future with dignity.”
Notes
About the Rohingya displacement
- In August 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar following a campaign of targeted violence.
- Today, nearly 1 million Rohingya live in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, alongside tens of thousands elsewhere in the region.
- Many remain stateless, denied citizenship and basic rights for decades.
- The anniversary of the 2017 exodus is marked annually as Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day.
About the taro leaf symbol
- The taro leaf is inspired by the Rohingya proverb “Honsu fatar Paani” — “not even water leaves a mark on a taro leaf.”
- Its waxy surface causes water to bead and roll away, symbolising how the world has tried to erase the Rohingya through making them stateless.
- The symbol reflects the experience of statelessness: of floating without land underfoot, belonging nowhere, and being caught between countries that do not want them.
- Launched in 2024, the Taro Leaf Symbols package is a global initiative of Rohingya artists and allies to mark presence, self-advocacy, survival, and cultural pride.
- About the Meeras Pavilion
- The Meeras Pavilion opens on 25 September as part of the City of Sydney’s Art and About Festival.
- It will showcase Rohingya art, craft, and performance, serving as a cultural space of survival, resistance, and storytelling.
- “Meeras” means heritage — a reminder of the specific issues the Rohingya face, that even in displacement, even against erasure, their culture endures.