The first weekend in Medina (now in writing just one week back seems so long ago): a chance finally to wander the town a little with the brilliant company of the gorgeous Raquel, a Mexican-American volunteer who arrived last Thursday at the White House. She is here now for the same 6 week period as me and will then return to her home in Austin, Texas in July to raise funds to return to work with Meninadança for a year. Raquel has a a wealth of experience in social work and supporting victims of human trafficking, and is already bringing a lot of knowledge to the project, and I feel like I am learning a lot from her, particularly about sensitivity to cultural difference in this type of volunteering. You can keep up with her travel and work on her blog here.
Raquel also has a beautifully warm way with people and on our wanders we've had a few lovely encounters with local folk. Here is Jean Carlos carving a bird from this lightweight wood. He has taken a couple of months to get to this stage, and envisions painting spot colours of red when the form is finished. He was a philosopher type, quick to share his belief about work with us - that he would not waste his time working for someone else, but rather work to cover the basics, a roof, bed, food, and focus instead on learning, always learning. Inspiring! :-)
We also met three sweet young lads, Rafael, Rafael and Fernando, who were curious about us foreigners and tailed us for a short while, calling to us in English, "What is your name?", but too shy to approach when we replied. Once we were stopped and chatting with Jean Carlos they approached and sat and chatted with us on the steps. I was impressed by their football - a smallish ball made from toilet paper and paper wrapped in brown parcel tape.
We also watched the inspiring Born into Brothels film, a hugely inspiring documentary set in Calcutta's red light district, following photographer Zana Briski as she gets to know a group of children living in the brothels with their mothers, gifting them cameras and teaching them to take photos and critique their work. Zana stayed in Calcutta for two years and the quality of the kids photographs in that time is impressive to see. She organised exhibitions for their work, using putting the funds back into their community. One of the young lads, Avijit, was even able to go to an international photography convention for children in Amsterdam. The timing of this was critical for him, coming just after his mother's brutal death-by-fire at the hands her pimp which seemed to leave him understandably apathetic and disengaged with studying and the photography project. It was so heart-warming then to come across this article reporting his progress since the shooting of the documentary in 2004: Avijit is now studying film making at university in New York!
Since the shooting of Born into Brothels in 2004, Zana Briski and partner Ross Kaufman have established Kids with cameras, an organisation whose mission is to bring hope and transformation to children through the power of art, using photography workshops as their tool. Brilliant. :-)
Having watched the film I was left with a head spinning with more ideas for art projects with the girls here at the Pink House. If only we could source enough cameras for these 50 girls.... (anyone out there by any chance got any suggestions, contacts or links....??!)
Big love
:-)
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