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.
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a (re)productive year
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[…]
Read MoreOne stop shopping
Take five minutes to explore Obalanga’s weekly market, the largest in NE Uganda’s Amuria District. Here people come from surrounding towns and districts to buy and trade, make repairs, catch up with friends, and hear from politicians and itinerant preachers. The predominant language heard here is Ateso.
Read More(desperate for) Water Aid
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[…]
Read MoreMourning the Loss of Grace
I honestly thought she would make it. I’m not even sure I would have started this story if I knew she wouldn’t have. Wednesday after midnight I got a call from Sarah. “Mtoto yangu amekufa,” she repeated over and over again on the phone hysterically, “My child has died.” I went immediately to the hospital where I was the only one there to mourn with Sarah. Several times I almost pulled my camera out of my bag to start shooting but it just wasn’t the time. As the sun came up, I rode in a taxi with Sarah to the village of Abia, where she returned with Grace’s body to bury her along side her late husband. Here, friends of her late husband mourn with her. Grace was the last surviving member of her father’s family, all of whom fell victim either to the AIDS virus or to LRA invasion[…]
Read Moregrowing up with One Acre Fund
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,[…]
Read MoreOur Growing Numbers | Accessible Contraception in East Africa
As unemployment remains high and the region’s resources are rapidly being swallowed up by the booming population, family planning is something that every family should consider here in East Africa. In Amuria, Uganda where I live, 57% of all people are under the age of 17. When one compares that to my home town of Richmond, Virginia, in the US, that number falls to 22%. Uganda’s youthful population of 32 million has nearly doubled in the past twenty years. It has one of the highest growth rates in the world. If the current trends stay on track, the country will be home to more than more than 130 million people by 2050. I’ve recently been working with PSI, Population Services International, in Tanzania and Uganda. PSI works in a number of areas in Global Health, but I’ve been specifically documenting their family planning services here in East Africa. Working in[…]
Read MoreBraving the Swarm: Malaria in Uganda’s Amuria District
Amuria Health Centre has been packed beyond capacity in recent weeks, with more people occupying the floors than hospital beds. As the rains continue to fall, more and more people here contract malaria. During the rainy season, when streams rise and lowland areas become flooded, mosquitoes breed in greater numbers. This health centre’s resources (Amuria has no official hospital) are stretched thin even outside the rainy season. The entire district of over 300,000 shares just one doctor for all its public health centres. He travels around from village to village and is rarely in one place for more than a day. When medicine and supplies are available, the cost is picked up by the government. When they run out, which is all too often, the only option for patients is to pay cash for drips, drugs, and needles from the local pharmacy and bring them to the hospital. “Most of[…]
Read Moregray days, Amuria District
I’ve made remote Amuria District my base this year. However, I may not be able to go back for some time as all the roadways into the main town have been rendered impassable by floods. A month ago we were wondering if the rain was ever going to start. Now it has come full-force, isolating villages, bringing down huts, and flooding farmers’ fields. For the moment, more work from PSI has kept me in Kampala. Below, a motion picture of the dreary view from my concrete house in Amuria town. Nature is never kind in this part of Uganda. Far from the dependable, fertile, rolling hills and mountains of the west, the eastern land of the Teso tribe almost counts on nature’s capriciousness, alternating between flood and famine. “Every year it changes,” says Samuel Opio, a resident of Kapelebyong, a sub-county of Amuria District. “Some years there’s too much sunshine,[…]
Read Morepatience in Dar
The streets of Dar es Salaam are a parking lot on the average day. Now that the World Economic Forum has come to town, they’ve become more like long-term storage. I’m on photo and video assignment with PSI covering events surrounding the WEF but much of my time is spent sitting in traffic. This allows for plenty of opportunities for street photography provided one keeps the camera strap firmly tied around the arm. There’s no shortage of heads of state (or even royalty) in town. On Monday I sat across from a personal hero, Morgan Tsvangirai, in a city cafe.
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