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fotokids · 7 years

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Flying over Rome ©Werner Monterroso/Fotokids Fotokids Staff Exhibition 2016

Letter from the Founder N. McGirr

Looking back on our 25th anniversary year, it was rosy one, for the most part. Our exhibits drew in new people and inspired renewed in our loyal followers.

Our last exhibition in November coincided with the day after the U.S. elections. Attendance lagged at first, then I think most people showed up for a drink. (The Panza Verde Gallery graciously serves wine at their openings.) The work showcased photographs taken by the staff, young people who have been with Fotokids since primary school and are now in their 20’s and 30’s.

Since we generally spotlight only the children’s work, many of the photographs taken by the staff on trips to Europe and the U.S., (and later work) have never been exhibited. Images in the show ran the gamut from Paris at night, to Ugandan displaced camps, to the colours of Guatemala. You can see more of their work on the last page or on the web site www.fotokidsoriginal.org

Houseboats on the Seine, Paris ©Werner Monterroso/Fotokids 2016

Personally, it was a busy and emotional time for me as I transition out; trying to take a measure of when to offer advice and when to step back. Establishing a rhythm for working at home, where I allow myself the freedom not to concentrate solely on Fotokids, will take some training. I will still be writing the newsletter and fundraising but hope to do some of my own writing as well.

Guatemala’s school year starts in January. The staff spent 4 days in December at a planning retreat, doing a class-by-class curriculum. Everyone is excited about this upcoming year.

Fotokids is undertaking a new girls gender and vocational program in Santiago Atitlán that will expand our already successful Save Girls program. We began our first gender-based technology program in 2007 for young women from high-risk areas.

The Save Girls program, a 3-year technology course, teaches web design, flash, graphic design, illustration, video production, photo story narration and commercial studio photography. The goal of the program is to give young women entering the job market added skills, thus making them more attractive to potential employers.

Innovative plans this year call for Guatemalan women speakers presenting their work and how they got their start in non-traditional careers, writing short radio dramas based on the gender material studied, including issues of discrimination, racism, and machismo, and exploration of how women are portrayed in the media. Life skills will also be taught; how to apply for a job, the interview, employers expectations and responsibilities, along with practical things like how to open a bank account.

The younger children in Santiago will continue to produce e-books based on explorations of their environment as it relates to them. This year they created photographic e-books on exotic plants of Santiago A. and traditional plant medicine.

Ericka who is studying design at the university has created a syllabus for the students that is both professional and motivational. When she presented it during the retreat I thought, this sounds great; I’d love to take this course.

I’m very proud of our teachers who enthusiastically look for creative approaches to teaching. Rocio created two assignments that I particularly found insightful. In the first, the group of middle schoolers chose a magazine photo that appealed to them. They then had to forage through the school and pick out objects that echoed the forms reflected in the image and reconstructed them using Photoshop. By German©copyright Fotokids/2017

The second assignment was a study of three painters, Vermeer, Magritte and Picasso. The students then went out and re-enacted a selected painting in a photograph.

Vermeer©Matias/FotokidsTierra Nueva 2016

Tierra Nueva, the gang-dominated area where we work in Guatemala City, presents its own challenges. It is basically a violent hellhole where dead bodies pop up on the streets like earthworms after a rainfall. Do you remember Jonathon who had his both parents killed by a gang? Well, despite all we could do, (which is a struggle as we have the kids for only 5 hours a week. The remainder of the time (163 hours) they are submerged in an environment of violence and poverty). Jonathon finally succumbed to joining a gang.

Right before Christmas, his little 11-year-old brother, Michael, received a wrapped present delivered to his house. When he opened the box, an explosive device blew up in his face. He had burns across his nose cheeks and forehead. Luckily his eyes were spared. Michael was in the hospital for over a month. Both boys live in a humble shack with their grandma who suffers from diabetes and is losing her sight. Fearful of retribution, she covered up what we believe to be an attack by a rival gang and didn’t report it to the police. I really don’t know what kind of a future Michael will have if any. Your donations though are helping pay for the medical bills, rehab, therapy, school fees and extra food.

We are doing very well with fundraising. There are still have some children who need scholarships, but by and large with the two online fundraisers we do each year; one in May, Local Giving Day and the other in November, Giving Tuesday, you all have come through with flying colours and donations have reached a new high.

I thought this morning of the meeting I had with the children’s fathers in Santiago Atitlán when we began our program there in 1997. We were packed in a little cement block classroom at the public school, the fathers in their traditional embroidered pants and straw hats. One dad said to me, in a stiff, formal Spanish, how thankful he was for the project and that “We can only give them a hoe and you are giving them …a camera.” At the time, I smiled to myself saying, hoe-camera, hoe-camera, and the hoe no question about it, came up as the superior, most useful tool!

But the camera, the camera is the watering can that lets those seeds of curiosity, self-expression and creativity flourish. That’s what you have done. When people ask why Fotokids is successful, there are a few answers to that question, but undoubtedly it was your support and long-term commitment that made that happen, so once again take a bow.

If you have read this far in the newsletter you deserve to finish on what can be conceived as a more light-hearted note.

Andres Sosof, the innovative director of our Santiago Atitlán program, (he began with Fotokids when he was 9 years old and now is 26) had his students write down all the superstitions (or sayings) from the village and then illustrate them. I thought you would enjoy knowing some of these so that you can avoid falling into the following traps.

You shouldn’t eat the tip of the chicken wing because when you marry your husband or wife will be jealous and follow you around all the time.

A child should never eat inside a temascal (sauna) because if they do, all their teeth will fall out when they reach adulthood.

It’s not good for a boy or teenager to put a wooden spoon in a pot of herbs because when he is older, he will become a womaniser

Girls shouldn’t save jocotes (a small oval acidic fruit) that are bifurcated, in their blouses because if they do, they will have big breasts when they are older.

It is prohibited for children to run, shout or cry at twilight because the evil spirits will imitate them, and frighten them in the patios of their houses.

If a person breaks a stick of tinder in two with their hands, their husband or wife will die an early death (authors note, do watch out for broken twigs around the house).

It’s not good to throw food at someone, and if you do, you will live far away from your home and village when you marry.

A pregnant woman shouldn’t step on fish scales, or when her baby is born it could have scabies

If a girl eats fish eggs in her future she will have lots of children

When a child has a fall, the parents should go to the site of the accident, preferably under a guayaba tree, and lash him to the tree to ease the pain.

If a young woman gives a photo of herself to her boyfriend and later deceives him, he can take the photo to Maximón (Pre-Spanish conquest deity) on a night when she is asleep. Upon awakening in the morning, she will find herself not in her house, but at a street crossroads, tied up, and naked.

When someone loses their dog, they can get him back home calling his name into the water jug.

Take your clothes off when you come across drowned people (I think there might be something missing with this one) BUT it was followed by!

On Drowned People’s Day?! (Is that like a national holiday or just local?) the drowned take to the streets singing, but if you come across them at midnight, you must take off your clothes and lay in the dirt so that they will pass by without taking you.

And finally: When a person eats rotten beans, he always forgets things.

I think these helpful hints should go a long way toward keeping you out of trouble this upcoming year.

Information: All past newsletters (and additional material) can be read on this secret supporters website www.fotokidsinsider.wordpress.org

Images and more info on www.fotokidsoriginal.org

How you can Help (if you’ve been left out). We still need some scholarships, Educational $600 year, Fotokids $300.

Don’t forget to put us in your Will (definitely you 1%ers –you know who you are…though on second thought, not sure you read this newsletter) Our legal name: Fotokids Inc. 45-1261970 (IRS#)

Out of every dollar that you donate to Fotokids, 97¢ goes directly to our programs and services. You may donate online at www.Fotokidsoriginal.org, on our Fotokids FB page, or make checks out to: FOTOKIDS

Send Holiday cards and any donations to: Fotokids/Walt Trask, 1333 Jones St. #1001, San Francisco, CA 94109

AMAZON- If you use Amazon be sure to sign up for Amazon Smile –costs you nothing and they contribute a portion of each purchase to Fotokids http://smile.amazon.com/ch/45-1261970

More Photographs from The Staff Exhibit November-December 2016

Winter Quarterly Newsletter 2016/2017 Flying over Rome ©Werner Monterroso/Fotokids Fotokids Staff Exhibition 2016 Letter from the Founder N. McGirr Looking back on our 25th anniversary year, it was rosy one, for the most part.

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