Recently I spent the day with Colleagues at Reaching Hand an Bangalore based organisation that started in 1996 to work with vulnerable children, marginalized women & deprived families.
We spent the day playing and working with the children from the Female and Male homes, covering a host of activities. I spent the day introducing 6 of the children to photography using some disposable cameras, so they could learn, shoot and see their photographs.
It was a fun time and also a rewarding experience watching and listening to the children play around with photography. One of the most interesting things I heard was when I was asking the children what they would like to photograph or what they like about the idea of photography - one response was "no one can tell me what to see and photograph, I can do whatever I want". This caught me off guard, it was a very powerful statement, I felt proud I could spend the day with the children and allow them the freedom to express themselves.
The work is being processed and will be presented back to the children, so they can see the results of their work and their democratic eye!