Village galleries goes to africa
By Jeff Young
21 September 2007
In early July, a team of 8 Canadians and 1 Australian landed in the small town of Monduli (a 2 hour drive from Mt. Kilamanjaro) with the purpose of teaching photography to several Maasai villages. This initiative was in collaboration with the Monduli Pastoralist Development Initiative (MPDI), a not-for-profit group working in Tanzania. MPDI?s mission is to effectively improve the standard of living of the Maasai in Monduli District, while preserving the rich culture of the Maasai people.
The trip was a huge success! We are confident that the July efforts of Village Galleries had an immediate positive impact and will continue to be effective well after our return home. The relationships we developed in Tanzania will spark new and exciting initiatives for the betterment of the Maasai people.
In total, we taught photography to close to 500 Maasai from 9 different villages! The Maasai people took over 5,000 photographs during our stay! 15 teachers from the local school system were taught photography and the skills we were able to transfer to the teachers enables the Maasai to carry the project into the future with additional Maasai villages. Our understanding is that many outings are already planned!? As well, three experts from the Village Galleries team transferred the Adobe Photoshop skill to two Monduli teachers, enabling them to successfully manage future photographs taken (for inclusion in web-sites they will be developing). In all, we left behind 48 cameras and printers, 4 laptops, plenty of ink and paper and many smiling faces! MPDI has established a ?library-like? system for the equipment, which enables villagers to check the equipment out and return it under an effective system they have developed.
At the heart of our project was the goal of helping the Maasai preserve their culture. The Maasai are a strong, massively warm, smart (the speed with which they learned was remarkable) and proud people, who are very committed to progressing, but are equally committed to progressing without deterioration to their culture and beliefs. The opportunity for progress will come in many forms; better medicine, diversity in agriculture, and perhaps most importantly, education. The area of Monduli has rocketed to the top of Tanzania in the building of 34 early child-hood education centers within the Maasai villages. In these areas, children can now learn at an early age. These centers (mud huts filled with 60-70 children sitting on rocks, singing and counting) blend the formal and informal values of education and are instilling the love of education at an early age. These incredible results are achieved in Monduli because of MPDI and Amani (our Australian connection) who have tirelessly worked this to its current success. We witnessed on a daily basis the overwhelming need for more in education, but were always comforted by the notion that a project like ours can make a difference and that huge progress in Tanzania can be made with little financial support from abroad!
At all of our photographic workshops, we spent quality time on photographic story-telling. This was a time when several Maasai would stand and present one of their printed photographs and explain why they took the picture they did. These were usually insightful, emotional and fun times. A few examples of what we heard:
A young man took a picture of a community toilette, a large partially covered hole, and as he held the picture in his hand, waving it passionately, he spoke with equal passion on how he was going to show it to all the villagers and encourage them to use the toilette at all times in order to prevent the spread of disease!
A young female teacher showed a picture of a young student and described how she would take pictures of all her students. If one of her underage students became ?claimed? for marriage and dropped out of school, she described how she would take the picture to the local authorities and demand her return by telling them ?this girl is too young and must be in school to complete her education?.
A typical scene on a typical day out in the field? After driving off road for several kilometers, we?d embark on a Maasai village where many villagers, keen to learn picture taking, greeted us. On a hillside, we?d set up cameras and printers and with the assistance of our Maasai interpreters and Maasai teaching staff, we?d teach basic photographic skills. In a matter of minutes, the Maasai were off in the villages, snapping pictures of cattle, each other or often, us! Check out the expressions of interest and delight on the faces of our newly crowned photographers!
As a follow-up to this amazing project, Village Galleries will be hosting a future gallery of photographs in Toronto. The exact location and date are still to be determined, but with the already committed corporate support of Research in Motion (RIM) and Hewlett Packard, we ensure you that the gallery will be a must-see! We will be sure to invite you all and express our gratitude for your support, one more time.
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