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Unlocking Potential – Senegal

A seedling that doesn’t receive enough water and sunlight in it’s infancy cannot grow into a fruitful tree. In the same way, a child who doesn’t receive love and proper care cannot realize his full potential as an adult, should he be fortunate enough to survive into adulthood. ChildFund’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) Program in Senegal is working in immensely challenging conditions to empower parents and caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to properly nurture their children at this crucial stage in life. This is last in a series of six videos from the same number of countries I shot and edited for ChildFund’s new iPad app which exploring the different facets and successes of the ECD program. Special thanks to ChildFund’s Christine Ennulat for the creative input here. Here’s some other fun shots from a stroll down the beach in Dakar:  

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Your Daily Dose of Vegetables

My latest video piece, which I shot for Lutheran World Relief, has given me premonitions of giving it all up and moving out to the country to be a farmer. That’s easier done than most people seeing as how I already live in Africa. Mina seems to like the idea. She used to only farm rice and corn, allowing her family to scrape by at best. LWR‘s agricultural programs in Bihar, India have allowed hers and hundreds of others’ crops to thrive in an otherwise dry and rocky environment. Hit play above and sway along with the saris and sitars.

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Gifts That Grow

What a difference a goat or two can make! That’s the story told in the above video I produced for ChildFund New Zealand, which promotes the annual ChildFund Gifts That Grow catalog. Who knew a goat had the power to beat malnutrition, send a child to school, even build a new house? Below, yours truly gives a behind the scenes look at filming in rural Zambia and working with families that have received these amazing gifts. Maybe you’re feeling especially generous after watching this? Whether you’re in New Zealand, the US, France, Australia or elsewhere, ChildFund is likely working in your country so you can make a tax-deductible gift to someone like Perina this season.

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Dam That River

How can a family earn income when most of their time is spent meeting the most essential of needs? How can an entire village or town develop if all its inhabitants face this same problem? As with other things, water does not grow on proverbial trees, but neither does it run through municipal pipelines in much of the East African nation of Kenya. Consequently, families are at the mercy of rainfall and river water to ensure the ability to drink, cook, bathe, and wash clothing. Unlike much of the West, rainfall in Kenya usually occurs only during a certain few months out of the year. The later in the dry season it is, the harder it becomes to find a water source. On one of my latest assignments with ChildFund, I documented the lengths to which people go to find water in Kenya’s Migwani District, just four hours north-west of[…]

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