jake lyell photography (blog)

You would think as much as I’ve photographed the lives of women that they were getting preferential treatment here in Africa. Sadly in most cases it is the opposite. Though women are increasingly gaining more roles in government, Liberia’s current president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, remains the first and only elected female head of state on the continent. Although countries like Uganda and Rwanda do have significant female representation in parliament (in both it’s mandated by law), this inclusion hardly ever trickles down to the village level. Last year there was quite an uproar in Sierra Leone when a woman made a bid to become chief. Places where women are marginalized are often places where crimes against them go ignored and unpunished.

As part of my most recent assignment with AcionAid, I visited the Women Won’t Wait Centre in Mubende, western Uganda. The center is one of four such locations in Uganda run by ActionAid where women can seek safety from domestic violence. Furthermore, women have access to counselors and even a lawyer at each of these shelters. Above, Nagabugo Agnes (r) seeks advice from a counselor at the center in Mubende. “I heard about this program on the radio,” she says. “I’m feeling good. I hope my problems will be solved here.” The NGO works hard at getting the word out to women before it’s too late, both by informing women of their legal rights and empowering them speak out and effect change in their governments and communities.

Take the case of Naziwa Annette, shown above, age 20. One evening she was severely beaten by her husband, but when she turned to the police, her husband fled the village. The police and local officials said they were powerless to act until Naziwa and her family came up with facilitation fees for the investigation. Two weeks later, while the family was scrounging up what they could, Naziwa’s husband returned and, in a fit of rage, severed both of her hands in front of her mother and daughter. Following ActionAid’s intervention Naziwa’s husband was caught, prosecuted, and imprisoned. Today Naziwa’s mother Patricia cares for her daughter and granddaughter.

This past Women’s Day Naziwa marched through the streets of Mubende along with other women who have been victims of domestic or gender based violence, brass band in tow. Hundreds of supporters from the local community, both men and women, trailed in their wake. It was a bold move on the part of these women and a sign of hope to those that still suffer. To express your own support for these women visit ActionAid’s website.

I haven’t been in the States during International Women’s Day in quite a while. Unless things have drastically changed, I can’t remember it being a big deal there. In Africa things are different. Currently I’m in Western Uganda gearing up to photograph a Women’s Day march and rally as part of a larger assignment for ActionAid. This coming Tuesday marks the 100th annual celebration of the event. Before I get to that however, detailing my previous assignment with the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative couldn’t be more appropriate for the occasion.

One of UWHI’s main programs is to deal with the diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer, which is the leading cause of death for women in Uganda outside the child bearing age bracket. A joint study by the Uganda Ministry of Health and PATH found that 67% of bed occupancy in the gynecological ward of Mulago Hospital, Uganda’s largest, is of cervical cancer cases and 70% of the women who die in this ward are cervical cancer patients.

Above, Mrs. Christine Babirye, diagnosed with cervical cancer last year, now receives radiation therapy at Mulago Hospital in Kampala. The machine, procured with the help of the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative, is one of only a few in East Africa and the only such one in Uganda. Patients travel from Rwanda, Southern Sudan, and the DRC to receive radiation therapy here at Mulago.

Even in developed countries, treatment options for advanced stages of cancer are extremely limited. Consequently, UWHI puts most of its efforts into screening and prevention. The organization works out of two separate clinics in Kampala to provide free breast and cervical cancer screenings each weekday to any woman who walks in. Nurses and midwives of the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative also have the capacity for treating precancerous lesions at the clinics. They have supplied training and equipment to another such clinic in the eastern town of Mbale.

Women whose cancer has passed all early treatment options must be referred to Mulago in Kampala. Because of the burden of transport and being away from their homes and families, some women never seek treatment for their cancer and inevitably succumb to it. For those who can make the journey to the capital, the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative has constructed a hostel where, for a nominal fee of about $4.25 per month, women can stay while receiving radiotherapy treatment. Thus more women are likely to make the journey to the capital to receive radiation to treat their cancer.

Uganda Women’s Health Initiative, in collaboration with University College, London, has also pioneered a number of studies focused on reducing women’s postpartum hemorrhaging following birth, as well as techniques to reduce child mortality in a country where giving birth is one of the most dangerous things a women can do. Results and details from these studies shall remain undisclosed until their publication.

In addition to continuing their work in maternal and infant mortality, the UWHI hopes to scale up efforts for the treatment and prevention of cervical cancer in Uganda by establishing treatment and screening centers in each of Uganda’s 100+ districts.

I’m currently on assignment with ChildFund in Kenya working on a television spot that will air in the US. The video concerns solar panels that the NGO has placed in schools and dormitories in two separate areas of the country. These photos come from remote Maasai land, north of the Tanzania border – far from any tarmacked road or mobile phone tower.

The solar panels, which were of great help to me when charging camera batteries, are even more useful to the girls at Nanin’goi Girls’ Primary and Boarding School in Mosiro, Kenya. Here students can study in class and find their way around the dorms without relying on kerosene lanterns after the sun sets just after 6pm each day.

ChildFund continually works with the elders of the community to ensure that the girls of the school are not subjected to early childhood marriage and female circumcision, practices still very common in this and other Maasai communities. On my first night at Nanin’goi two girls from a far away village came seeking refuge at the school. Though many Maasai have ceased to live as they traditionally have for centuries, most in Mosiro have not.

Though their separate way of life is admirable and beautiful, many traditions of the Maasai hinder their development. However, the fact that Mosiro is home to an all-girls’ school is something that would have been unheard of in a Maasai community even ten or twenty years ago. Change may come slowly, but it’s not impossible.

ChildFund also installed a water system at the school which currently has around 500 girls enrolled. Where’s the footage of these solar panels, you ask? You’ll have to wait to catch the spot on TV.


all photos Copyright 2011 Jake Lyell Photography, LLC

My photographs appear for the third time in this month’s Marie Claire. The magazine does a good job keeping its readers informed about what goes on in the lives of women throughout the world. For this article MC took a look at five different women in different countries on four continents, comparing their salaries and lifestyles. The subject of my photos, Rachel Jama, whom I shadowed for a day in Soroti, Uganda, was the most unique of all the women. Read the article and see if you don’t agree. The January 2011 issue is on stands now.

With assignments in six different countries throughout the world, PSI has filled up at least a terabyte’s worth of hard drive space in RAW and video files for me this year and has kept me busy enough to fall behind on my blogging. While Population Services International has programs in a number of areas in global health, I’ve primarily been documenting their reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention programs along with the lives of the women who have been helped. All of the following were taken in Mali, Cameroon, Vietnam, and Cambodia.


Above, Kono Cecile receives a hormonal implant in her arm at a clinic in Yaounde, Cameroon. The implant will prevent her from having children in the next five years and allow her to concentrate on better raising the children she already has.

Banconi is a crowded suburb in Mali’s capital, Bamako. Mariam Sangare, shown above at her children’s bath time, had 13 pregnancies before deciding to start using family planning. Sadly, only nine of her children have survived. Mariam and her husband live with seven of their children and her sister-in-law in a one room apartment not far from the clinic where she received her hormonal implant.



Above, Mrs. Djomo Odette is a PSI trained midwife who counsels women in Yaounde, Cameroon about family planning options ranging from the intrauterine device, to condoms, to hormonal injections and implants. Many PSI-sponsored clinics like that of Mrs. Djomo’s in Yaounde offer one open day each month, where women can attend and receive contraception courtesy of the NGO.

Above, Safo is a village 15km outside Bamako, Mali. While family planning services are difficult to come by in the capital, they’re almost unheard of in rural areas, where, on the average, fertility rates are much higher than in cities.

Most women in Mali must seek family planning services in secret or risk retribution from their husbands, often in the form of beatings or even divorce. Children are prized in Mali’s conservative Muslim culture, where men often have more than one wife. However, as women begin to have a greater presence among the country’s workforce, it becomes difficult to earn a living while looking after multiple children. In addition to the economic deterrents, women are also aware of health risks associated with bearing children.

“I’ve never talked about family planning with my husband. If he knew I came to the clinic today to get an implant he’d be very, very angry. He’ll either divorce me, chase me out of our house, or make me come back to the clinic to have it removed,” says an anonymous woman I interviewed. “I need to be able to space my children so I can continue doing my hairdressing without having to look after babies all the time. That way I can continue to make enough money to continue supporting my mother because that’s what I have to do.”

Open days similar to those held in Africa are held in reproductive health clinics across Cambodia as well. Below and above, providers in the city of Kampong Cham prepare for an IUD insertion. In Cambodia PSI has established the Sun Quality franchise of health care providers in order that consumers can differentiate between well run and poorer quality clinics. The 83 Sun Quality providers across Cambodia receive consistent training, monitoring and support in order to maintain higher standards.


In Vietnam and Cambodia the HIV/AIDS infection rate is disproportionately high in the sex industry. While prostitution is illegal in both countries, it is widely accepted and tolerated. Above, a man ascends the staircase of a brothel in Hanoi, Vietnam. As shown below, PSI works in such brothels by forming relationships with their owners and educating them about condom use for the their workers.


PSI also targets clients by sending IPCs (Interpersonal Communicators) to bars and restaurants frequented by sex workers. In these personal encounters the dangers of HIV and prevention methods are openly discussed between the would-be client and the IPC. Below, IPCs talk with young men at a bar in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.


Above, sex workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Below, Huong Tay is a brothel owner in Hanoi.

Cityscapes from…. Yaounde, Cameroon:

Bamako, Mali:

Monument de la Paix – Bamako:

Red River – Hanoi, Vietnam:

Hanoi:

Phnom Penh, Cambodia:

Phnom Penh:

It’s been ten years since world leaders came together to form what became the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to tackle world poverty. Heads of state recently met again for a summit at UN headquarters in New York to discuss progress made in the last decade.

My most recent assignment with Water Aid UK was not to document progress that the NGO has made in communities where it works. Instead I was commissioned to visit areas where there is still much work left to be done. Unfortunately, it’s not too hard to find schools, hospitals and communities that lack clean water sources or proper toilets and sanitation facilities here in NE Uganda, which is the poorest and least developed area of the country. Water Aid has used these stories for awareness campaigns that led up to the summit. They’ve also shared them with the decision makers themselves. They hope to highlight how clean water and proper sanitation facilities can help achieve the MGD’s goal of, among other things, cutting poverty in half by 2015.

Recently the UN declared access to clean water and sanitation a fundamental human right and pressed donors to “scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all.” Half the world’s population lacks access to proper sanitation facilities such as a simple toilet, whereas one in eight is in need of access to clean water. As a result diarrhea kills over 4,000 children alone every day. Poor water and sanitation facilities also lead to drop-outs in school attendance and unhygienic standards at clinics and hospitals.

In the wake of the global economic downturn it is unlikely that all the goals will be met. However, some significant progress has been made.










all photos Jake Lyell and Jake Lyell/Water Aid

I’ve recently been impressed with the work of the agricultural NGO One Acre Fund. While on assignment in Kenya for business magazine “FIVE,” I documented the organization’s work with small farmers. These farmers usually cultivate no more than approximately one acre of land and therefore are usually the most in need. While OAF works in both Kenya and Rwanda, these photographs are from western Kenya’s Webuye district.

Why is One Acre Fund featured in a business magazine? Its model differs from that of most non-profit organizations. Instead of handing out improved fertilizers and seeds, farmers are given loans for these things and organize in groups under the supervision of a extension worker to learn how to use them. The groups then bring their harvests together at the end of the season when One Acre Fund acts as a bulk selling agent, thus commanding higher prices for the farmers. In 2009, farmers working with One Acre Fund increased crop yields at a rate of 100%, with a 98% repayment rate of loans. Currently, 45% of One Acre Fund’s field costs are covered by farmer repayments, a percentage that continues to grow. Sound more like a sustainable business than aid? Let’s hope so.

One of these days I am going to have to get a car, but I’ll hold out for as long as I can. I came to East Africa in part seeking a simpler lifestyle. I enjoy chatting with people around me and getting to know the culture in-depth. I watch in fascination as the preachers and hawkers board at one town, shout and sell to their captive audience and disembark at the next. Getting across the country is cheap and my clients appreciate the transit fees on the final invoice. But bumping around on buses is starting to wear on me. Above, a busy Kampala street as seen from the window of the Teso Coach to Soroti.

The last month has seen me traveling from the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania to the remote and mountainous Uganda-Sudan border and various places in between, much of the way spent with my camera hanging out the window. Above, pedestrians on the streets of Lira, Uganda. Below, after months of arduous journey, I reach the source of the Nile.


Toward the end of June I was in Bukoba, Tanzania, on the western (and least accessible) side of Lake Victoria. There I did photo and video work for Computers 4 Africa. C4A takes second-hand PCs and ships them to a school, hospital or institution in Africa that can make use of the machine you thought was out of date. It’s an excellent concept and needs to implemented en masse in order to both create jobs and improve productivity on the continent. Above and below, students from Rugambwa Girls’ Secondary School are recipients of computers from C4A.

Take a moment to experience the hub-bub of the bus park in Mbale, eastern Uganda:

Let’s hope no one’s waiting on this bus for their next paycheck.

Above, open-air passenger lorry in Karamoja. Below, motorcycle taxis, or boda bodas, in Lira.


In Uganda the landscape changes quickly from plains to mountains to bustling towns within a span of a few dozen kilometers. For the northern leg to Kidepo National Park I had to hire a 4 wheel drive, as roads tend to resemble craters more than anything else.

I know I’m not breaking any new ground in wildlife photography, but I am starting to pay more attention to the fauna around me. Stock photo sales, of course, contribute to my motivation. Above, Vervet monkeys in Entebbe, Uganda.

It’s important to travel with in convoy or with armed escort in the Karamoja region of NE Uganda. Though bands of armed cattle raiders are more under control than in the past, they’re still operating. Karamoja is the least developed area of Uganda, and one which I plan on exploring more thoroughly in the future.



Weighing up to 900kg (2000 pounds), the Cape Buffalo is reported to kill the most people in Africa each year, though the hippopotamus is a close rival for this accolade. They travel in massive herds and are able to defend themselves against predator attacks, sometimes even killing lions. On the other hand, giraffes eat leaves and really don’t have to worry about much.

Lastly, a rain storm looms on the horizon. I was caught in this same deluge five minutes later- lucky for that waterproof camera bag.