For at least part of my recent assignment for the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Morocco, I had the opportunity to be a tourist.  Well, kind of.  Tourism is one of this North African country’s major industries, but also one that has not reached its full potential.  In the medinas (old quarters) of Fez and Marrakech, MCC has helped bolster tourism with the installation of cultural walks through the ancient winding alleyways.  It’s also provided training and improved workshops for some of the cities’ artisans, whose workshops can be seen farther below.  These projects are in step with the organization’s principle of reducing poverty through economic growth.  MCC also has other programs in the fisheries and agriculture sectors.

Also, some of my earlier work for MCC was just published in the Guardian today.

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While on my way to some rural areas of Maharashtra state, I took a moment to see how some of Mumbai’s 21 million residents spend their afternoon.  I’ve made it to India at the height of summer, but I much prefer the 100°F+ dry heat of June to the extreme humidity to come in July and August, which has rendered my lenses useless in the past.

India is both the extraordinary and the execrable, and sadly I’ve grown much too acclimated to the latter.   The level of poverty seen here brings about a feeling of hopelessness.  But as I’ll show from a couple of video pieces I’m creating now, even at unlikely odds, the battle is winnable.

The post Indian Summer appeared first on Jake Lyell | Video Production | Photography | Based in East Africa.

It’s hard to believe that as much hoopla as this guy has stirred up, as much attention as he’s garnered in the media, that the problems he caused are still not yet fixed. Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army plundered Northern Uganda for over a decade. The rebels killed tens of thousands of Ugandan civilians, displaced millions, and turned the peaceful farms across the region into heaps of ashes.

The war against Kony’s LRA ended in Uganda in 2006. It’s still ongoing, albeit on a smaller scale, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the rebellion most families in Northern Uganda were forced to flee their homesteads and livelihoods for the security of crowded refugee camps. Still largely dependent on handouts from government and relief organizations, they’ve returned to their land with nothing. Economic and psychological recovery has yet to be realized.

When you’re left with almost nothing, it’s nearly impossible to rebuild. ChildFund Australia’s Community Recovery Program focuses mainly on widows who were effected by the upheaval caused by the LRA, their children and grandchildren, and any orphaned children in their care.  ChildFund works to ensure they’ll be able to provide for their families again, send them to school, and hopefully, to return to the pre-war prosperity they experienced long ago.

PS. You don’t have to be an Aussie to donate.

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In the Democratic Republic of Congo it is more dangerous to be a woman than it is a solider. Since 1996 a series of wars, rebellions, and flareups in the East have caused over 2.6 million people to be displaced from their homes. In the ensuing crises, it is women and girls who have suffered the most, most especially as survivors of sexual or gender-based violence. This video, a reminder of the conflict that is seemingly forgotten by the international community, tells the story of these women.

In the DRC, CARE works to bring about lasting transformation in the lives of women through psycho-social support and economic empowerment programs. However, the organization also works with men in order to dismantle unhealthy cultural biases toward women while building communities in which girls can grow up with the same rights and protection men experience. CARE is also working to provide emergency food and shelter to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people who have sought refuge in camps amidst the conflict.

The post Women’s Heavy Burden: CARE’s Crisis Work in the Congo appeared first on Jake Lyell | Video Production | Photography | Based in East Africa.

You certainly won’t need an umbrella in South-West Zambia outside the month of January. While many places in Africa have plentiful rainfall and lush soils (central Uganda for instance), many rural farmers, after only one brief rainy season each year, must attempt to cultivate enough food for their families in extremely dry and sweltering conditions.

This means that families have only one small window of opportunity to grow food and sell any surplus to earn income. Often that window is not great enough to last the entire year, and so not only does poverty persist, but something even more brutal occurs: hunger.  Most of us who would read this entry have never experienced true hunger. Perhaps we’ve had to go without lunch because we were too busy at the office.  However, true hunger is a reality for the people of this area of Zambia, most of whom survive on cornmeal porridge once a day.

And what’s more unfortunate for the people of Luangwa, Zambia is that most people in the West are tired of hearing about hunger. For this assignment for ChildFund New Zealand, I had to think of new ways to make hunger personal, to show the ways it affects families, but also to show that it is something that can be alleviated.

The video above, which I shot and produced, illustrates the problems and effects of hunger on a small-farmer family.  It also demonstrates concrete steps that ChildFund NZ can take, with proper funding, to mitigate hunger in the community. In fact, many of the shots for the “solution” half of this video were of ChildFund agricultural programs in other parts of Zambia that are already successfully running. The potential for hunger alleviation is there. It’s now up to donors to respond.

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It’s just early spring in Barcelona, and a bit of a chilly one at that, but life is in full bloom here.  I can only imagine what this town on the Mediterranean is like in July.  For all the joie de vivre in this city, or shall I say alegría de vivir, you wouldn’t know Spain is currently suffering from gloomy unemployment levels of 27% (Reminds me of last year’s infamous “Spain is not Uganda” quip.)

Beaches, nightlife, art, and gastronomy are all big draws, but for me it was mostly the architecture.  From its ancient Roman walls, to its Gothic Cathedrals, to the quirky creations of the 19th and 20th century Modernistas, Barcelona enjoys over two thousand years of stunning design tradition.  What better setting in which to savor caviar and cava? Outstanding architecture is something I’m exploring more and more of these days.  Look for a new section in my works coming soon.

The post Meanwhile in Barcelona… appeared first on Jake Lyell | Video Production | Photography | Based in East Africa.

While I’m in the Democratic Republic of Congo primarily to produce a video (coming soon) for CARE, I’ve still managed to nab a few good stills of life in the IDP camps. Up until a few weeks these places were a no-go thanks to the M-23 and various other militias wandering eastern DRC. The humanitarian crisis continues…

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If you could get a caffeine rush from walking through tea fields I’d be bouncing off walls by now. But as I’ve learned recently from shooting for Shared Interest in Uganda’s tea-growing highlands, there’s a lot involved in getting those glossy green leaves into a palatable consistency.

Shared Interest, an ethical investment company out of the UK, loans exclusively to fair trade buyer and producer organizations around the globe. Hit play below (and turn on the HD!) to find out what Shared Interest is doing in this corner of Africa.

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Get this: 80% of Burkina Faso’s population attempts to make it’s living in subsistence agriculture while only 19% of land is arable.  That makes farming kind of like a guy getting a date in a country where men outnumber women four to one.  Poor soil qualities, fluctuations in rainfall, and topsoil erosion all contribute to the country’s crop production woes.  Recent work is displayed here from the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s agricultural programs in Burkina Faso.

MCC, a humanitarian arm of the US State Department, is boosting production and access to markets for small farmers in this West African country, however.  The programs shown here document the organization’s efforts in sustainable agriculture, livestock vaccination, fertilizers, and agro-forestry, as well as ground-breaking, innovative initiatives.  In the Market Information Systems program, agents use cell phone technology to publish regional market prices for a variety of commodities.  Farmers who subscribe to the database can then find out whether or not its worth it to take their harvest to the next market, 10km or 20km down the road.

Around 4% of Burkina Faso’s woodlands are disappearing every year.  Most losses are linked to farming, but the expanding Sahel is also a contributing factor.  MCC’s agro-forestry program educates small farmers about the benefits of preserving precious forest resources and makes seedlings more available through the establishment of community nurseries.  MCC has invested in Burkina Faso to the tune $4.8 million.  Though divided among infrastructure, education, and agriculture initiatives, it’s certainly not small potatoes.

The post Back to the Farm appeared first on Jake Lyell | Video Production | Photography | Based in East Africa.

Highways, electrical substations, dams and water systems…. now computers. It’s exciting to be documenting Africa’s infrastructure and technology expansion. The above video was shot in Kenya and produced by yours truly. UK NGO, Computers 4 Africa, helped Peter Kanini break the cycle of poverty in which he and his family found themselves with a computer training course. The organization also provided equipment to his technical training school. Now as a computer teacher, Peter is passing his knowledge on to the next generation.

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