The semester is ending, and I thought it would be okay to do something I’m personally not a fan of: posting a blog without a link to the article.
So this week’s post does not come from the internet, and so I don’t have a link. I found it today in a Vogue magazine, and I thought it was interesting enough to share. The month is November, but it’s only the third (or fourth…fifth?) of December, so it’s ok.
Andrea Tese is a photographer who teaches photography in Malawi, as a kind of job-training for people who do not have the option of going to professional school. She goes with an organization called Goods for Good, which donates surplus materials from American companies to children in Africa. During her stay, she lives in a village called Mchezi, where there is no street lights, no telephone, and a few wells. She had to dress in a way that “respectfully covered her legs” , and boil the water for her shower. Each day after the morning ritual, she grabbed her camera and walked to the community-based organization where the Tailor-in-Training program is taught.
There are people creating uniforms for orphan girls from fabric that would have otherwise gone unused by fashion houses in the U.S. Waste there is transformed into opportunity. While the girls have the opportunity to attend school with the uniform, the people who make them learn a new way to earn a living. Andrea teaches photography to HIV positives. By the end of the class, she distributes 100 disposable cameras donated by a NY company. This was the first time her “students” had ever held a camera. They had three days to shoot 35 pictures, and came up with some pretty amazing frames: because they had so little opportunity, they chose carefully the things they wanted to portray. She hopes that capturing life will give them life, and open new windows.
