Last year, I had created a library of images for Planned Parenthood Global, which works in rural and urban areas of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Ethiopia, and Kenya. In all of these countries, rates of unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortions remain very...
Teenage Pregnancy in Guatemala
In Guatemala, half of all young women marry before the age of 20. Only five percent of them use an effective method of birth control. Forty-four percent of women become mothers before they reach 20; the proportion of young mothers is even higher among women without...
Educating Child Brides in Rajasthan India
This past January, I had another opportunity to work with EducateGirls India, an NGO that works in Rajasthan, where gender inequality is especially high. EducateGirls has intensive programs to educate as many girls as possible. Their goal is to encourage them to...
Dowry Abuse in India- Action India Women’s Support Group
This January, I documented the work of Action India, a grantee of the Global Fund for Women. Action India is involved in many aspects of women’s empowerment; one aspect of their work in particular, however, moved me the most: supporting women who have been victims of...
Planned Parenthood Global and Soccer in Kenya
(The following text has several contributors- primarily Joyce Ho, a Graduate Media Fellow from the Stanford School of Medicine and Leila Darabi from Planned Parenthood Global). In Kenya, Planned Parenthood Global (PP Global) works with several local soccer leagues to...
A few 2011 highlights
I had the privilege of working on some very satisfying and rewarding projects this past year. I documented the Novartis Malaria Initiative and a few of my photos were recently used in an ad for Novartis in the Dec. 19th issue of the New Yorker. Here is the ad and I...
7 Billion Unique Stories
A new report from the UN comes just ahead of a demographic milestone: the world’s population is expected to pass 7 billion in late October, only a dozen years after it surpassed 6 billion. The UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) is about to release a new campaign...
Nigerian Chronicles X- PPFA in Gboko II
This is the concluding chapter in this series, and will focus on healthcare training and an AIDS clinic at the NKST church headquarters facility. Some personal impressions will follow the visual presentations. The NKST reproductive-health project recently upgraded a...
Nigerian Chronicles IX- PPFA in Gboko
So far I have been documenting family planning in Muslim communities in Northern Nigeria. This next post brings us back together with Thank-God Okosun and PPFA’s activities in an evangelical Christian community in Gboko, Benue State. The NKST (Nongo u Kristi u k...
Nigerian Chronicles VIII- Social Networking
In a small village an hour outside Kano I was asked to photograph a large congregation of people inside a small courtyard. Apparently this was the beginning of a wedding ceremony where Traditional Birth Attendants take the opportunity to dispense birth control...
Nigerian Chronicles VII- Hospitals
Abortions are illegal in Nigeria; nevertheless, abortions occur and as they happen under non-medical conditions, serious complications are all too frequent. Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital (MMSH) is the primary public sector hospital in Kano State and has the...
Nigerian Chronicles V: SWODEN in Kano
SWODEN is a foundation supported by the Packard Foundation that operates in Kano, the second most populous Nigerian city after Lagos, which has an estimated population of 2.1 million inhabitants (from the 2006 Nigerian census). SWODEN is a multi-faceted NGO, whose...
Nigerian Chronicles IV- PPFA in Maiduguri
In Maiduguri, PPFA ( again supported by Packard Foundation grants) had set up a Reproductive Health Information and Services Center run by youth peer educators. PPFA considers peer to peer interaction very critical for successful youth and adolescent reproductive...
Nigerian Chronicles III- PPFA in Gwoza
Gwoza is a community in northern Nigeria that is over 90% Muslim. As recently as six years ago it was inconceivable to imagine any birth control or family planning options. They were regarded as taboo. The accepted norm was that “God gives children and God will...
Nigerian Chronicles II- Yola Nomadic Schools
These schools were funded by the Packard Foundation. According to the foundation, the education of girls is the best indicator of reproductive health outcomes as they mature into women of child bearing age. The plan is to make sure these children will receive an...