South Africa Collection
For two weeks December 2008, I was invited to photograph the work of TRIAD Trust in South Africa whose mission is to use athletics and the arts to help assess the needs of a community, inspire and empower children to lead positive lifestyles, and identify local leaders who can provide ongoing mentorship to the community and the children in particular. The work is multi-faceted and ranges from home based care for those sick in the community to youth programs in basketball, soccer, drama, music and photojournalism. TRIAD’S greatest area of focus amidst all these programs is to educate local people about HIV and AIDS and encourage those involved with their programs to get tested and know their status in a country where the prevalence of this disease is estimated somewhere around 20% but even higher in the Nkomazi region, where TRIAD is currently working.
For more information on the work of this organization and how you can help, please visit: www. triadtrust.org.
About This Work:
Photographic Memory Project:
This collection is dedicated to the “Go-Go’s” of the Thembaletu Home Based Care. Within this gallery are their portraits. Their role in the community is critical. They are the ones who travel out into the remote areas where the sick lay, in some cases otherwise unattended to, to provide palliative care and emotional support to those who need it the very most. They tend to the children of the house and offer support to the caretakers within the family. The mission of the Photographic Memory Project is to get small digital cameras into the hands of these caretakers so that they, or the children of the families they tend to, have the opportunity to take pictures of the parents before the chance has passed. The children these parents leave behind would be left otherwise without any record of the family they once had...
