An idea has been bouncing around in my head for a few years, mostly in the back. It's roots probably come from a discussion in 1999 with a friend and colleague at the time about teaching youth in San Francisco how to make films.
Then in 2007 I went out to Washington DC on an informational interview trip ostensibly to pave the way for a move there. Indeed I did "move" there in September of that same year but it didn't stick. During that trip earlier in the year, I showed up for an appointment with someone and found that her boss, the director of the center for Governance and Democratization, had stepped in to chat with me. We headed down the hill towards Dupont Circle to Starbucks. On the way he was more interested in my film background. In the future six or so months he was putting together a program called Bridge Media whereby children in post-conflict areas from both sides would be taught how to make films about their lives to be shown and discussed among themselves and shared with the other community or communities.
A few days later I had a second interview with his team, this time more specific on what I saw could be done. I returned to San Francisco and the communication cooled and then went down. Almost a year later I checked and the project was up and running.
While in Sudan I thought it would've been great if I had some smaller, less complex, and lighter cameras to teach children how to use and then curate a show both there in Abyei (how I'd print the photos I don't know) and elsewhere.
So, now I am putting together a proposal to form photography clubs in collaboration with international NGOs, dovetailing with life skills training/programming for 10-13 year old youth. I target that range because I'm most interested in early adolescence, during that time where the search for identity within a community and the larger world begins. I envision two or three-month spans of time, enough to grasp basic concepts, regular meetings when we can introduce more concepts and give thematic projects such as home, family, peer pressures, religion, etc. All the while I'll document in video and stills the process, the photographers being photographed, and collect their stories about their lives, their photos, and the motivations for those they took.
I've already piqued the interest of an NGO that serves IDPs and orphans in Uganda and a researcher in Western China. But, of course, the biggest mobilizer will be seed funds so that I can do the first round, be it amongst the Inuit of Greenland, youth in Nagorno-Karabakh, children of drug addicts in Guam, or indigenous people of Peru. Additionally, working with youth in Afghanistan and South Sudan tremendously excites me.
