Senses

Click to expand photos
Also, all the Brazilian flags in these photos = some hard core world cup fans

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

View from the plane

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

From Bangladesh

Moments

From Bangladesh

It is hard to know how to describe this experience in words. This city is the definition of sensory overload, and my eyes are constantly moving. A photographer's paradise. The first five days of being in Dhaka I was immediately thrust into interning at BRAC, quickly learning the ropes. We are working closely with three different departments and bouncing between floors in the 21 floor BRAC center. There are about ten interns total working this summer, all working in different departments and we do most of our work on the 21st floor. There is a balcony outside with an unbelievable view of Dhaka. Several times a day I stand out on the balcony and (with sweat dripping all over my body) watch the city below. There is a lake across the street and canoes shuttle people back and forth all day long between my side of the lake and the massive shantytown that is partially suspended on stilts.

From Bangladesh

Also below is a rickshaw rental center, with hundreds of bicycle rickshaws waiting for their wallahs to pick them up. Taking them, you can travel in the surrounding areas for about 40 cents. Lunch is 30 cents and I am growing accustomed to eating with my hands. Tomorrow I leave for Bogra and Rangpur and will be gone for a week, it will be so interesting to see life outside this massive city.

From Bangladesh

I am living in a BRAC Training and Resource Center (TARC) which is also home to a group of 25 Afghanis who are living here for five months doing a full time training session on Educational Management. As soon as I arrived, a group of ten people came knocking at my door, asking me who I am, where I am from, what I am doing and if I wanted to eat dinner with them. The dinners are made by the TARC staff and there is separate sections for afghanis (non spicy) and everyone else(spicy). At dinner I spoke for a long time with a 35 year old woman named Shafiqa who described to me her ambitions to open a pre-primary school in Kabul someday. She began speaking about war, how her life has always had to adapt to it, how much she hated wearing a burqa, how she wants to see the whole world. She described how everyone she knows has lost someone. She told me about losing her two brothers. We held hands tightly, and locked eyes for a long time and (although it is impossible to describe here), I felt changed. I told her about my brothers, how precious they are to me and how I could not imagine losing them. We held each other in a long embrace as if we were both comforting each other for the tragedies of this world. She is a changemaker, a warrior and a kind, beautiful woman. It is in these moments when I am overwhelmed with how much we normally separate ourselves in this world. A man drinking his morning coffee in the U.S. can click a button on a computer and send a drone to pakistan, with literally no understanding of those it will affect. But it is also in these moments of connection, when I fall in love with humanity all over again.

Dhaka

Life is incredible. The past few weeks were absolute madness as I juggled preparing for this trip, shooting a wedding and jewelry line, babysitting, and relishing the time I had with Ethan. Hence why no blogging occurred before I left. But I sit here now, on a slow but steady computer in the BRAC center, on my first morning in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I will be here for 65 days until August 9th, interning with the organization BRAC. Together with my partner Patricia (who I will go pick up from the airport in a few minutes), I will be creating a web-based storytelling platform for several deparatments in BRAC, all based around Social and Legal Empowerment . This will highlight the stories of hopefully ten women whose lives have been impacted by their programming. The more I learn about BRAC, the more amazed I am that I have the opportunity to work with them.

BRAC is the largest NGO in the world, created by a Bangladeshi man named Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972. They are a development organization that has combined a grassroots mentality while at the same time achieving scalability at an incredible level. They have shown that the leaders of development in poor countries must not inevitably come from abroad. The facts are unbelievable: Four million children (70% girls) have graduated from BRAC's primary and preprimary schools. Millions have benefited from their health centers and workers, including 70,000 community health volunteers. Perhaps what they are most known for are their microfinance initiatives, which in 2008, loaned more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS. What really makes BRAC unique in their approach to microfinance is their belief that credit alone is not enough, especially where physical and economic infrastructure is weak. BRAC creates forward and backward supply chain linkages to support the enterprises created through microfinance. This means creating the infrastructure to ensure that enterprises succeed.

For example, to assist village chicken rearers, BRAC developed a system for poulty vaccination, chick rearing, feed production and chains of feed sellers and egg collectors (creating jobs for village women). BRAC has replicated this idea of linkages in social forestry, silk production, fisheries and prawn cultivation. BRAC operates a stunning range of institutions/enterprises including a bank, a university, a housing finance corporation, tea companies and feed mills. BRAC is even installing a wireless broadband technology which will transform education and communication by trasmitting wireless data over long distances. Through this approach, BRAC has created millions of jobs around the world, and uses earnings to support their other programs. Because of this, only 20% of BRAC's budget comes from donor funds, making it an incredible example of financial sustainability. Yet because their model is so self-sustaining, they have had little need to invest large amounts in international fundraising efforts. The resulting disconnect is unfortunate- they are making a huge impact around the world, yet the story of the work that they are doing (and perhaps more importantly, the way that they are doing it) is not well known. I want to change that.

Let me be clear, BRAC is not Grameen. BRAC is about the development of the whole person. Their rights based approach, looks at both supply and demand of rights. They create demand among the rural poor for their rights by making them aware of their rights and entitlements and building leadership & institutional capacity. They help increase the supply of rights by making the government more responsive to the needs of the poor and marginalized, developing capacity of local govt representatives, and creating direct linkages between the rural poor and local government.There is no hierarchy of rights (economic over social etc), they are all intimately interlinked. They have several departments making a huge impact. I really appreciate that they look at the systems of structural violence that deny the poor their rights and entitlements. They are working to enhance the social and human capital of poor women and marginalized people so they are aware of their rights, empowered to claim entitlements and able to resist exploitation. The Social Development Program is working to promote social mobilization and collective action as well as strengthening local governance to make it more pro-poor, accountable and transparent. One way they do this is through the creation of community based institutions called Polli Shomaj, which are a meeting place for members of the community (mostly women) to gain strength from collective processes and articulate and address the problems of their communities. With 9,324 groups all over the country, they are having a tremendous impact.


Their Human Rights and Legal services program has 9,000 shebikas, or 'barefoot lawyers', who are the frontline soldiers for human rights around the country. The shebikas teach legal education classes and refer human rights abuses to BRAC's free legal aid clinics, where survivors receive free resources (like housing, treatment and other social services) in addition to free legal representation. I am honored to work with them, and I cannot wait to see their impact in the flesh.

Running out of time now... so much more to say, got to run to the airport. more later!

 

 

 

Spring!

 

 

 

 

When I was just a tiny ten year old stealing my dad's digital camera, my sisters would make fun of my endless photos of flowers. But as spring arrives, the blossoms once again symbolize the renewal of life and call to my camera. I am so grateful for the chance to experience another spring (this winter felt endless). Life is wonderful.

Reynolds Summit & Personal Manifesto

Two weeks ago my scholarship, the Reynolds Program of Social Entrepreneurship, had a summit in Washington D.C. The Reynolds' introduced us to dozens of influential leaders in the course of three days. It was absolutely incredible. ((Unfortunately they didn't let me take any photos except the last night)

The first night we ate dinner with 3 members of the Supreme Court (Sotomayor, Kennedy and Ginsburg), the second day we heard a plethora of speakers, from Anthony Romero (director of the ACLU), to Larry Summers (Director, National Economic Council and White House economic advisor), General Colin Powell, Dr. Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy, US Department of Energy)and Jacquline Novogratz (found of Acumen Fund-- she was one of my favorites). That night we ate dinner at the Capitol with three congressmen: John Lewis, John Dingle, and Roy Blunt. Nancy Pelosi stopped in for about ten minutes and gave a passionate address about the importance of health care reform. Her energy was contagious.

The final day we went to the Blair House (where foreign heads of state stay when they are visiting) and the US National Security Advisor General James Jones came and spoke. He completely avoided a question about Palestine, choosing to speak instead about Iran's threat to Israel. Later we heard the Director of the CIA (Leon Panetta) speak, which convinced me how desperately the world needs more anthropologists (or at least the CIA does)...

The final dinner was unbelievable, definitely the most decadent meal of my life. Although I (almost) always eat vegetarian, I decided to go for the filet mignon (considering a girl should try it at least once ;). That night we danced and danced and danced (Wolf Blitzer danced too until 1am!).

I feel so blessed to be a part of such an amazing cohort of changemakers. I can honestly say that the most life changing revelations from the three days came from my conversations with my fellow scholars. I decided that I no longer want to pursue the Masters of Public Administration that I have been working towards.

I am now dreaming of creating an entity (business or organization?) that creates web-based multimedia platforms for not-for-profits. My theory is that the more depth and nuance we allow into the stories we tell, the more connected the viewer will feel. Dominant not-for-profit photography tells the story of the work the NGO does and those they work with in a 2 dimensional plane, perpetuating unequal relationships based on pity and guilt between western audiences and those whom they serve. Harrowing images of suffering and pain perpetuate exoticized and static understandings of how our fellow humans live. NGOs should not just aim for sympathy which, although it may motivate through guilt, ultimately dehumanizes those whom they are trying to benefit. Rather,they should aim to spread deeper understanding of a larger issue through the stories of individuals and their communities. They should try to show what life is really like for those they serve.

I believe that we must show individuals as parts of communities (the Kroo Bay project does an excellent job), who have so much more to them than whatever issue they are supposed to represent. This approach values the dignity and voices of those who are part of the community. It promotes a more equal relationship between the viewer and the subjects, emphasizing our interconnectedness as humans. Those who are served by NGOs are not recipients but agents. When we recognize our common humanity, we are called to action, because (in the words of Desmond Tutu) "My humanity is bound up in yours and we can only be human together." The world does not need western saviors, but we must each answer the call to act in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in every corner of the world.

I believe that if you can help people visualize a problem or issue, they can understand it in a much more personal way. Statistics are important but often they barely register in our brains. We can't imagine them so we can't comprehend them. A face stays with you in a way numbers can't.


I am just beginning to form this idea but I have already heard a lot of interest from my colleagues who have started NGOs. This summer will be my first project in this new initiative...

This summer I am going to BANGLADESH (!!!) with my beautiful friend Patricia (a fellow Reynolds Scholar who I adore more than most things on this planet).


Patricia and me at the Reynolds Summit, photo credit Cesar Francia

We will be traveling around rural Bangladesh for eight weeks interning with the organization BRAC in their Human Rights and Legal Services division (http://brac.net/index.php?nid=127). We will be creating a multimedia web based storytelling platform that will feature the stories of eight (we hope) women who are the survivors of human rights abuses (acid violence, rape, human trafficking). I am unbelievably excited about this project, I recognize it will be difficult (especially with such sensitive stories), but I think it will be a powerful testimony to hear the stories of women who are fighting against a system of structural violence that permits such abuses to occur.

Anyways, I didn't mean for this to turn into a manifesto but it kinda happened that way...

Enjoy the photos from our last night in D.C.!