"Life of a child through a lens"

Printed in: Grocott's Mail, Grahamstown, South Africa
Reporter: Kanina Foss
Date of publication: June 8, 2007

"Snap. Two babies in blankets, bundled on a couch. Snap. A friend's smiling face, pressed shadowy against a wire fence. Snap. Kids sitting on crates outside a shack, huddled around something on the ground. Snap. A hand holding the match lighting the drugs another's nose is inhaling. Snap. A yellow bus turning a street corner. Snap. The inside of a taxi. Snap. A smudged finger.

Each image is a chapter in one of the life stories told by Amasango Career School pupils who were recently given disposable cameras donated by the American SNAP Foundation.

Their task: take these cameras, tell your story. The end result: immediate visual access to a world some are afraid to visit in person. "It allows people to get as close as they want without actually having to venture into the area," explains Amasango volunteer Jason Torreano, who is from the United States and organized the project.

According to the SNAP website, the foundation gives pupils the chance to explore their world through the lens of a camera, and then to to tell their stories to others. "It's meant as a creative outlet for these kids so they can show people in Grahamstown and people back home [ in the USA ] what their lives are about," says Torreano. "It's a story a lot of people haven't seen."

The children from Amasango have all had a rough start to life. Many of them are at the school because their parents are not providing for them, and they've ended up on the street. "People immediately dismiss them as trouble makers, without knowing where they come from," say Torreano. "Sure, some are addicts and need money for their next fix, but some are trying to support their families by begging."

The point is they're human. "Some see them as opportunistic trouble makers, but they don't see what's behind that, the battles these kids fight on a daily basis," says Torreano.

Amasango tries to get them back on track before mainstreaming them again.

"This is the second time Torreano is volunteering there. He first came last year on a university exchange, then went back home to save money for a second trip. This time he arrived with cameras, 80 of them.

When he told the SNAP Foundation he wanted cameras, they asked him how many. He said 80, not expecting half as many, but before he was due to leave for South Africa, all 80 of them arrived on his doorstep. Some were broken, but Torreano was able to give every child in grades 5,6 and 7 at Amasango a working camera, and a chance at doing a thing some of them had never done before: take a picture.

The easy part, for Torreano, was handing out disposable cameras to a bunch of teens who were really excited about receiving them. "At home, kids wouldn't be excited. Maybe if they were digital," he says.

The difficult part was making sure they didn't fight over them. "You have to make sure you give to one kid, you give to all, so fights don't break out."

He told them they could take pictures of anything that told a story about their lives. "I didn't explain techniques to them because I didn't want them to take perfect shots. That's part of the beauty of it," he says.

Zalisile Dyonashe, 17, took pictures of himself because one day, when he has a son, he wants to be able to show them to him. "I will say to him, that's your father, and he'll be proud to see his daddy can take pictures," he says.

Masixole Sam, 17, also took a picture of himself. "I like it because I can give it to my father. Maybe if I steal something and go to jail my father will think of me. I don't want my father to cry," Masixole says he's happy to be at Amasango because if he's in the location every day he's going to fight and then he might die.

Others took pictures of things they love. Siyabulela Mali, 15, took a picture of a donkey cart and another cow. "I love donkeys," he says. "They do the things you want, give transport. make jobs. I love cows. I love the milk of the cow and the meat." He also took a picture of a scrapyard he says he loves because he finds money there.

The photographs are being exhibited at Rhodes. Torreano says he's glad the youths are going to have a chance to go to the university and feel they have a right to be there.

A while ago he took a few of them onto campus and was approached by a security guard who said "You can come, but they can't." What got Torreano is that the teens just accepted it. "These are kids who who'll fight people over anything, they'll kill each other over a slice of bread," he says. "But they were perfectly accepting of the idea that they just didn't belong there. To me that was a fight that really should have been fought."

"If you treat them as less than human for a long enough time, they'll eventually start to believe you. The fact that the exhibition is at Rhodes will make them realise they can make it there too."

The Amasango photographic exhibition is on at Eden Grove from Monday until Saturday (16 June)."

"No matter how slow the film, spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen."

"L.I.F.E. as they know it" begins at Rhodes University this Monday. There will be dozens of photos up on the Eden Grove concourse that each tell a fragment about somebody's life story. The happy, the sad, the inspiring, the illegal: the kids came through in a monumental way. They captured their lives, or segments of their lives, in 27 frames. They'll have a chance to show Rhodes University, and greater Grahamstown, how they live. Their thoughts. Their stories. They did the task at hand; not all of them, but many of them, and I couldn't be prouder, or happier.

Here's the poster that's been put up all over town--and all over campus--that advertises the show. I've received RSVPs from dozens of faculty and administration at Rhodes who say they'll be there for the opening. The kids arrive at 7. The guests arrive at 7:30. There will be gum boot dancing from Eluxolweni Shelter guys and hopefully, plenty of conversation about the kids' work. Here's hoping -

Everyone has a story. This is theirs.

The photo exhibit at Rhodes begins next Monday. I wanted to write up something small that people can read just before walking in. My aim in these couple paragraphs is to tell people about the project, about what the kids did, and warn them about some of the images contained within. I hope I struck a good balance. This is what the board at the front is to say.

"L.I.F.E-as they know it"

At the beginning of May, every child in grades five, six and seven at Amasango Career School was given disposable cameras through a grant provided by the Rochester, New York based SNAP "Seeking Needed Actions for Peace" Foundation (www.snapfoundation.org).

The assignment for these young men and women was really quite simple—and extraordinarily difficult. The children were asked to document their lives through the lens of a camera. They could take the camera wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, for as long as they wanted, taking photographs of whatever they wish. The only catch was they had just 27 frames to tell their story: to provide people with insight about what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what frightens them and what inspires them.

It is my hope that these photographs—moments frozen forever in time—provide everyone with just a little insight into the lives of these children; that these photographs showcase the humanity of children who are too often treated as less than human; that these photographs serve as a reminder that despite the fact that we may come from very different worlds, eventually, we must come to the realization that we all live in the same society.

Contained within this room are fragments of the lives of more than thirty children. As you walk around, keep in mind that these photographs are just part of a life, the beginning or middle of an ongoing story. Their laughter, their families, their joy, their pride, and yes, their problems. Life isn't always easy. Life isn't always fun. The photographs reflect that.

Everyone has a story. This is theirs.

- Jason Torreano

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple." - Oscar Wilde

I picked up the contact sheets yesterday from Kodak Grahamstown.

32 children returned their cameras and many of the photos are remarkable. Through this exhibit, and through the photographs, the children will have given anyone who looks at this exhibit an uncensored look at their lives. There are images from school, images from Eluxolweni Shelter, images of family and friends, from around town, and images in the township.

There are also 5 or 6 images of kids doing drugs. Crystal clear images of faces, pipes and what is believed to be Mandrax. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. I asked the children to take pictures of anything in their lives that tells a story of who they are. The student photographers who took these photos of their drug use--and abuse--were perhaps the most honest and most faithful to the task at hand: of taking photos of their day to day lives.

While I appreciate the honesty conveyed in these photos, should they be shown? I don't have any qualms with showing the images when I return home to New York as the abusers are half a world away. In Grahamstown though, they're right down the street. I am going to talk to Kodak about seeing if faces can be blurred. The exhibit promised to be an enterprising, gritty look at the lives of children from Amasango. Without these photographs, the exhibit won't be entirely truthful. Drugs, and issues surrounding drug usage, are a part of these students' lives. It shouldn't dominate the exhibit, but in my opinion, it shouldn't be excluded.

I asked them to tell a truthful story about their lives through the lens of a camera. I suppose I got exactly what I asked for.

"Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts." - Gary Winogrand

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's the case, every 5th, 6th and 7th grader at Amasango Career School in Grahamstown, South Africa will have provided me with 27,000 words about their lives by the end of next week.

The SNAP foundation (www.snapfoundation.org) in Rochester, New York sent me to South Africa with 80 disposable 27-shot cameras for the kids. We brought them onto the school grounds concealed in
plastic bags so that we could move into the office quickly, without the kids thumbing through the bags.

The cameras were handed out yesterday in true Amasango fashion. It was crazy. It was fun. It was a bit violent, but it was, without a doubt, Amasango: passionate kids who may have never had anything like a new camera for themselves pushing and shoving each other in line, screaming at one another in Xhosa, perhaps afraid that if they didn't push, they wouldn't get one.

They are allowed to take pictures of anything they want so long as it tells a story about their life. 80 cameras, 2160 photos, dozens of life stories.

I was looking over the proposal I sent to the SNAP foundation when I requested the cameras for this project and figured it would be nice to post here about what I hope this project accomplishes.

Who am I?

What should people know about who I am—about where I come from?

Who has helped me to become who am I? Who do I aspire to be like?

What do I struggle with the most?

When everyday is a fight—for dignity, for the hope of a better tomorrow, for the basic necessities so many take for granted—one has no time to reflect on these most basic questions.

Street children living in the Eastern Cape of South Africa have never had the opportunity to reflect: to examine who they are, to tell other people what their life is all about. Perhaps nobody has ever really cared to know the answer. Perhaps these children have been damaged by life and don’t want to know the answers themselves. It is my hope that “L.I.F.E.-as they know it” aims to take both the children photographers and the viewers of the photos on an emotional, excruciating, heart-wrenching at times, joyous at others, journey into the life of a South African street kid. Their sorrows, their triumphs, their lives.

Armed with a camera, watch as dozens of Eastern Cape children branch out to show the world what makes them happy, what makes them cry, what makes them tick, what makes them who they are.

Their histories. Their lives. Their thoughts. Their pictures. Their stories.

“L.I.F.E-as they know it”
[existence through the eyes of South African street children]