Kyle's photos

Here is a slideshow with some of my photos from Burundi:

Our Burundi Slideshow

Below is a slideshow of photos taken by the 16 participants in our Peace in Focus - Bujumbura workshop. They are 8 boys and 8 girls between the ages of 14-17 from Bujumbura and the surrounding region of Bujumbura Rural. They are former child soldiers, orphans of HIV/AIDS and the war, refugees, displaced and homeless youth. They represent the rich ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity of Burundi. Their stories represent an emerging narrative of resilient and dedicated youth from the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Through their entries (available on our main PinF blog) you will learn about them, their stories, the activities they experienced during our workshop, as well as their creative and unique vision for peace and social change, which they wish to share with you.

These photos were showcased at the Burundian Palace of Art and Culture in late August 2008.



We are grateful to our local partner organization, Jamaa, which provided untold amounts of support and continues to work with these inspiring young people. This summer was the first step in what we hope will be a long-term effort by Peace in Focus to engage Burundian youth in a creative dialogue and visual discourse for peace and reconciliation in their country.

To read more, please visit: Peace in Focus

Explain to me how photography can help build peace:

Two nights ago our team had a meeting with the Burundian Minister of Youth and Sport. Having worked with Burundian government officials before (I was a Human Rights Officer with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Burundi from 2005-2006), I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our hope was to simply drop off a letter asking for permission to hold our photography exhibit at the National Palace of Art and Culture. Although it was already dark outside and he was clearly busy, the Minister gave us half an hour of his time. As an obvious proponent of youth, he was very curious to understand how photography could help build peace between different groups and somehow lead to large-scale reconciliation.

Kyle, Joseph, and Kate with the Burundian Minister of Youth and Sport

I proceed to explain how I see it… These truly vulnerable young people need no longer be seen as victims. In fact, they are equal participants in their history and therefore need to be enabled to affect a larger pattern change in their society and have their vision and needs equally represented in formal decision-making bodies. Unfortunately, too often these young people are overlooked in programming and continue to lack healthy outlets to get to know each other and connect with those elements of trauma and violence that have shaped their identities. They need skills, exposure, and belief in themselves. They need to understand that conflict will always be there, waiting to be released in some way. Youth – and I would argue adults too – need to see that moment in which we engage conflict as a creative moment. It is a moment of opportunity. Depending on how we understand and deal with it, conflict can be a springboard for positive transformation or it can be a plank we walk only to submerge ourselves in untold injury and, sometimes, violence. Photography provides a pause. It provides countless powerful lessons that we may apply to conflict situations. With a photo or a conflict, we learn how to frame and re-frame a subject or an issue. We learn that my perspective may not be yours, and vice versa. We learn that there is a short lens and a longer lens with which we can look at anything, both in terms of our time horizon and our point of focus. It teaches us that there is a relationship between the viewer, the subject, and the storyteller (the photographer). In life, we play all three roles at one time or another. Photography enables the individual voice, without subsuming the shared narrative. Participants in our collaborative photography workshops all start at the same point, and as equals build solidarity through crafting and articulating their story and breaking down stereotypes of the “other” in their society. I see photography as capable of making a visual and creative addition to an organic truth telling process. In this post-violence context (and I don’t say “post-conflict” for good reason), art in and of itself has healing power.

If we go deeper, we learn that life and everything in it is ultimately unknowable. Art is capable of stepping beyond language, and I would argue culture, and giving us a glimpse into a side of life we often overlook or fail to awaken. Few would argue that any group holds more hope than young people.

And on it went… And as we continued to explain, the Minister began to ask more questions and give more suggestions to make our program even stronger.

Eric, Minister Jean-Jacques, Kyle, and Joseph

Earlier today I found out that our request was approved.

If for some reason you are near Bujumbura on the evening of August 20, I invite you to attend our celebration and photo exhibit at the Burundian Palace of Art and Culture.

Nadia, Kate, Joseph, Davy-Carmel, and Kyle working hard to prepare for our workshop

From Boston to Burundi

Three weeks ago I was returning from an excursion during our Boston workshop. Our group had spent the day visiting local organizations to get a better sense of what is being done in Boston around youth development, creativity, and social justice work. We visited Artists for Humanity, the Boston Area Youth Organizing Project, the Cloud Foundation, and a “Kids with Cameras’” photography exhibit on Israel-Palestine at the Boston Public Library.

Our group visiting the Cloud Foundation

Catherine at the Kids with Cameras Israel-Palestine photo exhibit

Upon our return to the school, Catherine (a participant), Wendy (a facilitator) and I were sitting outside of the school waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. While we were talking we heard what sounded like gunshots behind the school. The girls seemed uncertain, but it was an undeniable sound, and too close for comfort. Within minutes, several marked and unmarked police cars circled the building. Unfortunately, I heard right. There was a shooting of a young boy just behind the school where we were holding our workshop, in the middle of the afternoon no less.

Catherine and Kyle at the Franklin Park Zoo

Wendy and Kyle posing during our photography scavenger hunt. For this assignment participants were supposed to take a photo of "friendship."

In a way, this tragic event reinforced the need behind our work. Anyone from these neighborhoods in Boston can tell you how they worry about summertime for just this reason.

Fast-forwarding 3 weeks now, I’m sitting in a room on the outskirts of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. It’s Monday. I arrived to Burundi on Saturday, after nearly 48 hours of traveling. Across the table from me is a young boy, 15, who can hardly look me in the eye. I start by telling him my name and asking him to present himself. This is one of 17 interviews I would do that day to select participants for our upcoming workshop. In Kirundi (the local language) the boy would proceed to tell me about his life. At age 11 he was wounded by a grenade and, while in the hospital, was abducted by members of the FNL, Burundi’s last remaining armed rebel group. The FNL in English stands for the National Liberation Forces. The boy says he can’t remember his parents or his family. In fact, he would later tell me that he was made to promise then that he would never mention his parents again. He held his promise during our interview. I went on to ask about why he’d want to do such a program. Timidly, he spoke about wanting to be a journalist or a doctor. He said how photography could help tell his story.

No words really capture the trauma and horror in his eyes. I’m sad to say that we did not select him for this workshop. There are others former child soldiers that we did select. This boy, along with 12 others, will be first on the list for the next workshop, which we hope to launch in the early fall. For this workshop we will have 16 participants, 8 boys and 8 girls. Among them there are youth that are homeless, orphans of the war and of HIV/AIDS, refugees and displaced, immigrants, as well as demobilized ex-combatants. All participants are between the ages of 14-17. They come from different ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds. Although a small sampling of this country of nearly 8 million people, their stories are representative of millions of stories across Burundi and the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

Whether in Boston or Bujumbura, I’m learning that youth are not only the future leaders of their communities and our world, they are the present leaders and therefore need the access, education, and experience to be able to re-direct the present imbalance of war versus peace in our world. I remain hopeful that our work is a powerful potion for such social change.

To read more about our Boston workshop, please visit our main Peace in Focus blog, which I oversee but is designed and maintained by our workshop participants. All the words and images therein are theirs.

A different narrative will soon emerge from that blog, one of untold stories from Burundi. Thanks for reading…

Our Boston group outside the Franklin Park Zoo

Below is a slideshow from our Peace in Focus Boston Photography Exhibit, which took place on July 16, 2008 at Roxbury Community College.

Breakthroughs All Around

This week marks the culmination of months - actually years - of work and preparation. Thanks to my friend and colleague Kate and our strong team of facilitators and generous supporters the inaugural Boston workshop has started in a wonderful way. We have a committed group of 10 middle schoolers from 5 different Boston area schools.

Below are a few snapshots (with captions) of our first few days together. Our activities for these days have been designed to build relationships, teach photography basics, encourage creativity, discuss media distortion, visual literacy, and the role of photography in social change, highlight key community issues, empower youth to advocate and act, and have fun throughout.

To read more about our workshop, the participants, and their views, visit our main Peace in Focus Blog

Ice-breakers

Name game ball toss

The human knot

Our facilitator Kendra's (left) energy is infectious

Talking about iconic media images

Bring in the cameras...

During the "Taking a Stand" activity, participants were asked to agree of disagree with the statement: "racism still exists." This group Strongly Agreed with the statement and explained why.

Kendra and I begin to dig a little deeper into what the group thinks are the main issues in their communities and what they can do to create social change.

After sharing her spoken word poem on violence, Geisha received the glorious balloon hat for excellence.