Saturday, June 6, 2009

Girls + Banjara Community, Rajasthan, India


Over the past three years, this tribe was photographed in collaboration with the good people of Humana People to People India. The video above is made during the session that produces these very portraits.

In the beginning, this specific tribe is associated with a foundation school near Behror, Rajasthan. This past year, they move further away in order to remove themselves from the urban chaos and in search of their more traditional way of life.

This results in their children losing access to the foundation's school, one in which they are enrolled for about three hours per day, outside of their daily chores and work duties. While outside of class, these children collect plastic and so forth in order to sell in bulk later. They also approach certain people for donations in the streets.

As a matter of fact, in our search for this very group of children in Behror while stopping for some bananas, children very much like them from a different Banjara collective approach us. While my friends are a bit worried, both Indian and British, it seems like a good opportunity to find out what had happened to the tribe in the video from the previous year. My photographic album is shown to them and to the amazement of the people around us, the children chang their expressions and soften their stances, smile at the sight of their friends in the book and then begin to tell us where they had moved to since last year.

They do more for us than anyone could have done.

The moving images show the children reacting to our arrival after being directed to their village by those magnificent children the day before in Behror, Rajasthan. They give us more than can ever be given in return. We hope to change this very last point and, with your help, give them a chance at an education once again.

Should you like to be involved with this work, you are more than welcome to join the conversation. We can be reached at the information below:


As noted in Wikipedia, 'women are known to wear colorful and beautiful costumes and have tattoos on their hands.The dress is considered fancy and attractive by Western cultures. They use mirror chips and often coins to decorate it. Women put on thick bangles on their arms [Patli].Their ornaments are made up of silver rings, coins,chain and hair pleat are tied together at the end by Chotla.'

You can learn more about this most beautiful people at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjara



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