I’m delighted to say that this image has just been chosen as one of Action Aid’s images of the Year. The full set is here.
Tag: NGO
The fine people at Photoshelter (which hosts my archive) have an interesting discussion at the moment called Getting Photographers and Non Profits together that mentions my work in Lebanon via PhotoPhilanthropy.org.
It’s always good to feel that you may have contributed something positive…
Stuart Freedman Photographs the work Handicap International to affect Lebanese Policy Change
“Handicap International prides itself on having collaborated with Stuart Freedman on several occasions, the last one to date being his reportage in south Lebanon in 2007 that resulted in a book and an exhibition, both titled ‘Clearing for Peace’. We have granted Stuart Freedman permission to use freely the outcome of this collaboration, hoping that this fantastic body of work receives as much recognition as possible.
Stuart Freedman’s photographic work about the cluster munition issue in south Lebanon has been instrumental for us to lobby decision-makers, diplomats and governmental authorities so that they decide to ban these weapons. The exhibition has traveled to major cities of the world, when and where international negotiations on cluster munitions took place. On such occasions, the book was also distributed to the people involved in the discussions and to media representatives. This series of international conferences came to a conclusion in Oslo on 3 December 2008, when an international treaty banning cluster munitions was signed.”
Sylvain Ogier
External communications Manager
Handicap International
Here are a few images from the set:
According to NATO’s senior civilian representative, Mark Sedwill, children are safer in Kabul than in Glasgow.
Of course the statement is nonsense – the NATO propaganda machine in full spin mode – but he actually raises some interesting points.
There is appalling child poverty in Glasgow (as there is in much of the UK) but little from bombs or direct warfare. As Justin Forsyth from the NGO Save the Children put it, one in four children living in Afghanistan will die before they reach the age of five.
“Last year was the deadliest for children since late 2001, with more than a thousand killed because of the conflict” and “a staggering 850 children die every day, many from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhoea or pneumonia, or because they are malnourished”.
Actually, what Sedwill meant was that significant and direct violence was not the greatest risk for (especially) Kabul’s children despite them living on the edge of a live war zone. In other respects of course Kabul children illustrate perfectly the issues of young lives in the Developing World. They are forced by and large to forego what a childhood looks like to us.
A significant issue that divides children in Glasgow and Kabul is work and Afghanistan has a large proportion of working children. The development of the idea of childhood as we know in the West is a product of the Enlightenment and Victorian social reform. For many of the world’s children, work is not a matter of choice and going to school is an unaffordable dream. Families send their children to work through economic necessity not profit. We may find this deeply unpalatable but the world is as it is, not as we wish it to be. In recognition of this situation, there are small scale moves to unionise child workers and give those who have no choice, a voice and some rudimentary protection. The National Movement of Street Boys and Girls in Brazil is one example, there is another in Delhi. A basic conviction of these movements is that through community participation and the development of democratic practice, poverty can be challenged. All of these schemes involve lengthy intervention by social workers but represent a real-life (if partial) solution to the reality of working children.
Here are some pictures from Kabul and Delhi that illustrate the issues…
A few days ago I was contacted by a small local African NGO whose project I had made a short assignment with maybe six years ago. They were re-doing their website and wanted to give it a new look. Generally, I never, ever give away images but there are always notable exceptions and I remembered their tremendous work educating (and protecting) lone street children and their enigmatic champion, Agnes Chiravera. Agnes is one of those elegantly tough African women that just make things work through sheer will power.
I also remembered waiting for the school to open and being invited to do some skipping with a young girl and her friends that I subsequently photographed. Never easy to skip with cameras – but it certainly made the children laugh.
It’s those kind of memories that make some of the more tricky stuff bearable.
