Home/Life: 121 Kids from 11 Cities Photograph Their World

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 13 No. 2 (2003) ISSN: 1546-2250 Home/Life: 121 Kids from 11 Cities Photograph Their World Asbeck, Geert van and Bierens, Frank and Kuypers, Christiaan (2002). Amsterdam: Homeless World Foundation; 280 pages. $17.00. ISBN 9077180028. In Remembering Babylon, David Maloufwrites the story of Gemmy Fairley, a 13-year-old boy who, in themid-1840s, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in byaborigines. Sixteen years later, when settlers reach the area andstake out a patch of home, he moves back into the world of Europeans.In his initial contact, the apprehensive youth calls out from atop afence: “Do not shoot, I am a B-b-british object”! His utterance isappropriately symbolic, made from a liminal position, at the edge of apaddock. It is also strikingly accurate in denoting the treatment of amarginalized population as objects, deprived of the rights accorded tocitizens. Street children, too, have long been treated as objects, involvinga range of ill-considered approaches the most egregious of which havebeen the mass shootings ofbesprizornikiat Russian railway stations in the 1930s and the widely publicizedmurders of street children in Brazil and Honduras in more recent years.However, wellintentioned approaches have also often dealt with streetchildren as objects- objects in need of proper socialization, medicalcare, nutrition, protection, etc., dispensed by benevolists inpossession of medicines, food, power, knowledge and other resources. In the wake of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights ofthe Child by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, and itssubsequent ratification by all but two countries, street children havebecome more recognized as actors in their own right, with entitlementsand potentials to affect their situation. Volume 13, no. 1, of Children, Youth and Environmentsfeatured a special focus on street children, comprising 20 papers thatoffer examples of this 166 emerging “agency perspective.” The current issueof this journal also reproduces recent publications that similarlyattest to the abilities of children to be proactive and underline thesignificance of policies and programs that support their abilities.[1] Home/Life is an initiative by the Homeless World Foundation,which, in collaboration with local organizations, set up a series ofworkshops in 11 cities around the world: Africa (Cairo, Johannesburg,Nairobi), Asia (Jakarta, New Delhi), Eastern Europe (Budapest, Moscow),Europe (Paris, Rotterdam), South America (Paramaribo), and NorthAmerica (New York). In each case, professional photographers instructedup to 20 street children in the basics of photography. The children,averaging 13 years in age, were given cameras and film to capture theirdaily lives and document the world around them. Their work resulted in15,000 images from which the editors selected 150 photos to be includedin the book and in an exhibit touring the cities of the participatingchildren. The project is also presented in a web site designed by NairoBits, a program that trains youths from the slums in Nairobi in web design. The book starts with a brief editorial preface and a short commentaryby Anne Ellegood, associate curator of the New Museum of ContemporaryArt in New York. Several pages of thematic photo galleries then leadinto the bulk of the material, organized in alphabetical order by city.Concise but useful introductions precede these sections, giving somebackground on the cities and the participating children, although onewishes that these introductions had been elaborated a bit more tocreate a better sense of context. The book concludes with individualportraits of the child photographers, accompanied by briefautobiographic notes dictated to the workshop coordinators. After making their selection, Home/Life staff returnedto the 11 cities where they managed to re-contact most of the childrento talk about their photos and to provide captions for them. Each childalso received a copy of the book. Proceeds of the book benefit theHomeless World Foundation, which sets up and supports media projectsfor underprivileged children around the world with the goal 167 of enablingthem to express themselves, develop their creative skills, and gainconfidence in their own abilities. Street children spend a great deal of time in the streets andother public spaces. Aside from this commonality, they may share littleelse in what they do, their reasons for doing what they do, with whomthey live, where they come from, their hopes for the future, and manyother aspects of their lives. It...