“Poverty and Pollution” Photo Contest and Exhibit Raise Awareness
By Jean Gregory, Presbytery of San Francisco
You never know what discoveries you’ll make when on a journey—especially when going as part of an official delegation with the Presbyterian Church’s Joining Hands program. We here in the Presbytery of San Francisco are partners with Bolivia’s network UMAVIDA. The San Francisco Joining Hands groups along with our partners in Oregon’s Cascades Presbytery send a delegation to Bolivia once a year or so. The purposes are many: to investigate root causes of poverty, to establish personal relationships in Christ’s name, to bear witness to concerns and actions in Bolivia, to stand in solidarity with UMAVIDA, and to educate ourselves, our congregations, and greater communities about local, regional, national, and international issues We look for commonalities, our interconnections, as well as our misinformation, preconceived ideas, and political prejudices and biases.
This particular trip was, as usual, challenging, exciting, revealing, and exhausting. But anything at 10,000 feet can be exhausting. We were so warmly greeted and cared for during the entire ten days of our official delegation visit—fed, housed, guided, and instructed. We had so much to learn, to see, to investigate, to collaborate that we were kept very busy all day every day and seemingly half the night as well. And oh, the meetings and discussions we had! We traveled, spending time in various cities, learning details of the problems of mining, child labor, polluted water, and contaminated soil. We learned of creative actions being taken by various groups: an international environmental youth congress, “water schools”, a traveling troupe of committed citizens and children informing local people of their water situation and rights, and other more traditional affairs such as meeting with governmental officials and private businesses to address some of the hot issues.
It was at the end of our tour. We had even had the official final dinner gala exchanging gifts, accolades, and promises. Our visit was officially over. We were leaving the next morning. But there were whispered invitations to go visit yet another UMAVIDA organization in El Alto, the adjacent city to La Paz, the city with the international airport that we use. We were all exhausted and reluctantly two of us finally agreed to go meet with this particular organization. And I was so glad that we did. Just entering their complex lifted my spirits causing my energy level to soar. I could sense that the Holy Spirit was at work. We were given tasty treats and hot tea as we gathered in the office for our meeting. They informed us of what they did: sewing circles to engage women in a cooperative to earn wages, maintaining day care centers for young children, after school programs for older children, and an outreach for young men.
They explained that they had a severe problem with the young men who had left the rural areas due to environmental stress coming to the city to seek employment and a life for themselves. But alas, they had little education and no job market skills causing them to resort to crime, drugs, and violence. There was a killing practically every day. I gasped when hearing this, explaining that it sounded like they were describing my home town of Oakland, CA where we have the same problem, so many young, disaffected men with poor education and no job skills who were mired in poverty, engaged in crime, drugs, and violence. Why, last year we had well over a hundred murders!
It was their turn to gasp. They didn’t know we had such a problem in the rich United States. So two of our Joining Hands objectives were already met: finding commonalities, and uncovering myths and stereotypes. I asked what they were doing with these young men. They responded that they were giving them cameras and photography classes urging them to take pictures of their everyday realities so they could be displayed across the country informing people of their plight. “Wow,” I exclaimed! “We should do that too!” And that was the start of our Joining Hands endeavor to hold an international photo contest and exhibit.
WHERE AIR IS MOST NOXIOUS- This man is one of many homeless polio victims living in the city centre of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Those who are most vulnerable and dependent on begging are exposed to especially high levels of exhaust. Photo: Elizaveta Bekmanis
We returned back to the States all excited and began implementing the “Poverty and Pollution” photo contest and exhibit opened to young people exploring such root causes and effects of poverty and pollution. The idea is to engage people in the competition, to judge the entries, determine the winners and send the winning photos via internet to Bolivia and receive their winning photos and then to have an exhibit displaying the winning photos from both countries simultaneously. We have done this, displaying the portable exhibit in several venues. We have decided to do this annually and are in the midst of displaying the winning entries of our second photo contest and exhibit. We would like to continue this and perhaps to even expand it to include our other Joining Hands partnerships. Joining Hands is surely a journey of discovery through trust and faith and hope and love and the wonderful mysterious workings of the Holy Spirit. What a gift!
We returned to the States all excited, but soon got hit with the difficulty of turning visions into reality. The first challenge was to find participants. We met with local organizations working with youth and young adults, and although the staff and directors were very enthusiastic, nothing happened—no classes, no entries, and no follow-through. We posted the contest on-line: still no results. Then there was the time and energy factor—we’re all busy people and adding something extra on our schedules proves difficult to implement. Time goes by so quickly that the deadline appeared before we had any entries. Totally embarrassed we received the winning photos from UMAVIDA, but had no photos to send to them. So we used images that our former facilitator had taken when working in Bolivia.
The second year we fared better thanks to the involvement of one young woman who had attended the youth environmental congress the prior year. She made it her mission to gather entries which she did. So this time we had photos to judge and award prizes. The SFJH committee then mounts the pictures on a portable display board and hosts exhibitions. That became the next challenge: where to host the exhibitions? So far we have had exhibitions in other Presbyterian churches. But we would like to have more exhibitions in a variety of venues.
Undaunted, we continue to move ahead and are now planning for the third annual international photo contest. This year Peru wants to participate. And who knows? Perhaps all JH partnerships may join this endeavor. We continue to dream big and pray for the strength to implement and promote such an inspiring project.
This hits on so many of Joining Hands goals:
- Walk in partnership
- Do mission work without having to travel
- Raise awareness of global issues
- Create fundamental change not only in the partner country, but also here in the States from where so many of the injustices stem.
