Their village is their world, and more exactly their home is their world. Unless they are attending school, they are almost always within the confines of their homes.
They’re fully aware of the hardships facing them and yet they persevere and endure through it all. In this classroom they could be themselves and act out their creative thoughts. It’s been an honor to be at their side all of these years.
This is the reality for this young women, her aunts, her nieces and neighbors. Her community trades in sex, and the women are the products which the men of the community trade.
Our minute of our imagination is her reality for 1,440 minutes each day.
While it may be impossible for me to travel to India this year, it's more than possible to look back at the great memories made during the past 15 years. This trio of photographs brings fond memories of my time with Humana People to People India, and the community retreats that they would hold in the villages. In this game the participants would be blindfolded while the crowd would cheer them on as they searched for that clay pot.
While the community work being done by HPPI was very technical and complicated, they knew that they needed to engage the communities on the ground. This was a great way to involve everyone and to help even the playing field between genders, between age groups and so on. It's been a blessing to have been there and continues to be a blessing to know these great people.
Here is a portrait of another recipient of a micro-loan sponsored by Humana People to People India almost 8 years ago. At that time I was collaborating with this great team and helped to document this project in Virat Nagar, Rajasthan. This is one of my favorite places in India, since it also was the site of 16 beautiful schools for girls.
As an extension of the development programs in the region, micro-finance provided access to loans for certain portions of the population without such. This wonderful mother decided to use her funds to purchase this machine, and was able to feed her animals more efficiently. This in turn enabled her to purchase more animals, and have more milk for her family as well as for the market.
Seeing real change as it happens is a marvel, and I cannot thank Humana People to People India enough for such an education!
These images are over 8 years old and from my time of innocence in this wonderful land. At that time I was following those around me and documenting the great work being done by Humana People to People India. They had asked me to photograph a micro-finance project in the Virat Nagar area of Rajasthan.
This was one of my favorite spots for many reasons, one of which was a group of girls schools in the villages. At the time there were 16 schools for girls, and Humana was doing its best to transition out-of-school girls smoothly back into school. In these same villages there were examples of women who had taken on small loans in order to help their families.
In this case, this young mother had used the small loan to purchase this animal... and had used the proceeds from her new endeavor to purchase the gold in her hands. She told us that she would accumulate more in order to pass it onto her daughter when he daughter gets married in the future. We were witnessing change at the grass-roots, as it was happening right before our eyes!
