Social Documentary Photography and Film
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Mar 11th, 2010
For cross-cultural global health programs it’s critical to ensure that there is compatibility between the values of the program and the recipient culture. Since most Tarahumara women live several hours or days away from the nearest clinic or hospital they suffer one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in North America. Of course it [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Feb 24th, 2010
I recently returned from the Copper Canyon located in the Sierra Tarahumara in Northern Mexico where I was documenting the work of the non-profit organization One HEART as they address the high rate of infant and maternal mortality among the indigenous Tarahumara. There are about 70,000 Tarahumara Indians—or Rarámuri—scattered throughout the Sierra living in natural shelters such as [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Jan 7th, 2010
Hadia, age 11 Out-of-School Girls Program, Kabul, Afghanistan
By 2000, UNICEF reported that only 4 to 5% of Afghan children were being educated at the primary school level. Fewer still had access to secondary and university-level education.
According to the World Bank, “Since 2002, more than 6 million students and teachers have returned to school.”
The organization, Ayni Education [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Dec 31st, 2009
In sub-Saharan Africa, 61% of all people living with HIV are women. Young women (15–24 years) are three to six times more likely to be infected than men in the same age group.*
Unfortunately, 800,000 Zambian children have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and others are left to care for themselves because their parents [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Nov 11th, 2009
When I read in the book Half the Sky (Kristof/Wudunn, [New York: Knopf, 2009], xx-xxi) that the Joint Chiefs of Staff now consider the education of women and girls important to our military goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and consequently to our security here at home, it gave me hope that US military thinking has [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Oct 28th, 2009
Rachel Lloyd, founder of GEMS, New York City
Exploited and trafficked girls in the United States
According to the Department of Justice, over 100,000 adolescents are involved in prostitution in the United States. Sgt. Fassett of the Dallas Police dept pointed out an obvious irony of this situation. “If a 45 year-old man has sex with a [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Oct 22nd, 2009
Women Empowered has been my primary focus project for sometime now. I am currently expanding the exhibition to include multimedia profiles of a number of the women. The first that I have completed is the story of Akhi, who at the age of 13, was sold as a sex worker. She has since accomplished the [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Oct 8th, 2009
There are many who believe that the greatest handicap to development in Muslim Middle Eastern societies is the status and roles they give to women. Nowhere has this been more evident than in one of the poorest and dysfunctional countries in the world—Afghanistan. During the reign of the Taliban essentially all women working outside the [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Sep 16th, 2009
In 2004, I began documenting the work of organizations whose focus is the empowerment of women and girls. After visiting dozens of projects and meeting hundreds of participants and staff around the world, I have also come to believe that the most efficient way to alleviate poverty and reduce population pressures in the developing world [...]
Posted in Stirring The Fire on Aug 26th, 2009
Once One HEART’s work was terminated there was nothing I could document other than the frantic two weeks Arlene Samen (Executive Director of One HEART) spent trying to get permission for her organization to continue its work. After the decision to stop One HEART’s work in Tibet had been made, Arlene left for Nepal. She [...]
