Ghana

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 4 photos

I understand a place through the eyes of its people. I spent a summer hoping to `help` at an orphanage in Ghana but while trying to change the world, it changed me. These photos are not simply a documentation of what I saw but also a reminder of a place in my memory. Each time I look at these photos, they bring me right back to that place. Not necessary a place in Ghana but a place on my mind, a place that these children and I shared. A place which filled with thoughts, emotions, feelings, and colors. These are the faces, the eyes, the place of those children I met. After leaving the camp, those eyes continued to look at me. It asked me to do something about what I see. It challenged me to see intentionally and to take responsible to what I see, to become a witness.

After I returned, I changed my degree and recently finished a graduate degree in International Peace and Conflict Studies with a concentration in International Development. I wrote my thesis on the Ethics of Seeing and Responsibility.

I hope to share these photos-these eyes-this place, with you and hope that these eyes, too, will ask you to be responsible to what you see.