Safety
Three children run and play in Makpandu refugee camp in Southern Sudan. These beauties have fled the Lord’s Resistance Army. And here in safety they play.
// Photograph taken in Makpandu, Southern Sudan.
What May Change
Will this week of voting in Sudan bring peace, freedom, security and opportunity for children in Sudan? Will this child know a lifetime without war? Will this vote change the future for the ones that will be responsible to guide and build their country?
// Photograph taken in Boma, Southern Sudan.
Voting Begins
Today the Southern Sudanese begin a week of voting. This day has been anticipated for decades. The hopes of many rest on what will come.
// Photograph taken over Southern Sudan.
Speak
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
MLK Jr
// Photograph taken on the road from Nzarra to Yambio, South Sudan.
Beauty
The little beauty and her grandmother. Disability in the developing world is a tragically unaddressed issue.
// Photograph taken outside of Nzarra, Southern Sudan
Seen
I saw her sitting in front of the church in the morning. Outside, quiet, hands folded in her lap. We had spent the day filming, talking to people about how the LRA had terrorized their lives. When we came back to the church to get our car and leave, there she was. Still sitting in [...]
Is Peace Possible?
Is peace possible? Will this child know a day when the Lord’s Resistance Army does not threaten his community, family, land? I hope so.
// Photograph taken by Jonathan Olinger outside of Nzarra, Southern Sudan, in an informal settlement of Sudanese who had fled LRA violence.
Prayers for Sudan
These small papers with prayers on them were distributed in Catholic mass in Nzarra, Southern Sudan. Across Southern Sudan the Catholic Church began prayers for peace, in anticipation of the historic referendum vote on Jan. 9, 2011. I was struck by these simple words and a committment to peace.
The prayer says:
“Prayer for Peace in Southern [...]
New Beginning
In two days, southern Sudanese will cast their ballots in a week-long vote to determine whether they secede from the north and form their own country.
This is an unprecedented moment of potential liberty for the South.
// Photograph taken in Nzarra, Southern Sudan
DTJ2010
I have been part of DTJ for years, struggling to believe that the worst of injustices could change for children globally.
This year is no exception. In 2010 I went to Haiti after the earthquake, witnessing a grand landscape of pain, to Congo finishing our documentary on child soldiers, to the border of Sudan and Congo, [...]
Thank You.
Today is Thanksgiving in the United States but in Congo, in a small orphanage in the corner of Goma, today is just like any other day. Our attempts at thankfulness are feeble compared to those who know much more about true Thanks-giving – even when it is all hell around you.
I have seen [...]
Waiting
Mothers wait for life-saving nutrition for their children at a malnutrition clinic.
Angola has the highest child mortality rate in the world. But with Angola’s inflated GDP due to oil revenues, this crisis has gone unseen.
// Photograph taken in Catumbela, Angola.
Child Laborer
Small hands moving hard stones. They get 100 francs (10 cents) for every jerry can full of stones they gather. Instead of school these children are using their bodies to earn enough money to survive. As thousands of children demonstrate in the streets demanding the government fulfill their promise to provide free education, these children [...]
Marie
Marie and her children were attacked by the LRA in Northern DRC. Marie was abducted. She was able to escape, find her children and bring them to safety in Sudan. Once settled in Sudan, the LRA attacked again and this time took her children. She sat with us and wept. She does not know where [...]
At Last
This child was recently freed from the FDLR (Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda), an armed group which has its roots in the Rwandan Genocide and has been part of instigating war in Congo since 1996. Today, the FDLR is made up of armed fighters but also has many women and children that are forced [...]
Abraham, the brave
you, disabled child
beautiful in brokenness
abraham the brave
// Photograph taken near Nzarra, Southern Sudan. This boy is paralyzed from the waist down. Unable to walk, he has to drag himself on the ground. The LRA attacked his village and he was carried to safety by someone in his community. His unbridled smile, despite his disability, is [...]
Water
This boy will drink from this river. This water could kill him.
// Photograph taken outside of Benguela, Angola
An Angolan Mother
Caring for her child in a malnutrition clinic, she exudes strength.
// Photograph taken in Benguela, Angola
X
The dark around us, come,
Let us meet here together,
Members one of another,
Here in our holy room,
Here on our little floor,
Here in the daylit sky,
Rejoicing mind and eye,
Rejoining known and knower,
Light, leaf, foot, hand, and wing,
Such order as we know,
One household, high and low,
And all the earth shall sing.
- Wendell Berry
// Photograph taken on the North [...]
You Own Nothing
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the [...]
