By Clare Shreve
The visual and verbal media of 12 girls from a village in southern Uganda fill the walls of Buckley Center this month in a show titled, "Zoom Uganda."
Matale, the site of "Zoom Uganda," is an AIDS ravaged portion of the African continent where many people in the village are affected by the disease. Of these 12 girls, all of them have lost one or both parents to the AIDS epidemic.
Two individuals, Julie Resnick and Thomaz Lwebuga, from Portland, Ore. began the process of bringing the voices from Uganda back to the States.
Resnick is the project director of "Zoom Uganda," and native-Ugandan Lwebuga is a board member of the Harambee Centre, a Portland-based organization that connects Americans to the people and culture of Africa.
Primarily through the medium of photography, these girls gained the opportunity to explore their lives and their environment, said photography professor Pat Bognar, who is in charge of setting up the art exhibits in BC.
"I liked the idea of children using photography as a way of understanding life," Bognar said. "It's a great tool to use to discover who you are."
Resnick bought 12 inexpensive disposable cameras and gave them out to 12 of the girls in the Ugandan village of Matale. Equipped with a camera and journal, each girl had 24 hours to document any and all parts of her life.
Many of the girls chose to photograph their families. Photos of mothers, aunts and grandmothers preparing food or carrying the children in patterned dresses kneeling or standing on dirt floors decorate many of the girls' individual banners that hang side by side in the gallery. There are also photos of siblings, a grandfather and close friends.
Banners hang vertically against the wall, each printed with a picture of the girl and a selection of her photos. Each individual's captions are written in her personal handwriting. Senior Russ Wood said that it added an element of authenticity to the exhibit.
All of the selected photos show the girls' devotion to their families, their education and their future. One girl photographed a stack of her schoolbooks, while others captured themselves in their school uniforms or their friends at school.
Many of the girls wrote that they wanted to become nurses and doctors, some for the salaries, but others for the desire to help those in need.
The girls featured in "Zoom Uganda" attend St. Andrew's Secondary School where a new science building was erected recently. This new addition is still lacking the necessary instruments to make it a working lab. The donations, Nakaye said, that are made while the exhibit is at the University of Portland will go toward furnishing the new labs in the science building.
The need for help is great and ever increasing in Uganda. The CIA World Factbook recorded that the adult prevalence rate of those affected by HIV/AIDS in Uganda is 4.1 percent, compare that to the United States' 0.6 percent, both established in 2003. There are 61,000 more HIV/AIDS related deaths in Uganda than there are in the US.
In addition, 0.3 percent of the US population is living with the disease, whereas 1.6 percent of Uganda's population is living with HIV/AIDS.
With the obstacles that their community and their country faces each day, these girls are given an opportunity to move beyond them and become educated.
"When you educate these girls, you're educating the nation," Caroline Nakaye, freshman, said. Nakaye originates from central Uganda and is familiar with similar obstacles that these 12 girls are facing.
Nakaye understands the expectations of females in Uganda, but with the push for more math and science in schools many of the girls who are able to go to school are becoming well versed in biology, chemistry and physics, Nakaye said. Because of this acceleration in the sciences, many girls have set their sights on working in the medical field.
Donations are accepted through the "Zoom Uganda" Web site, in addition to cards that will be sold at the closing talk on March 3 at 6:30 p.m. in the gallery.
The exposure that this exhibit will bring to this community in Uganda is not only helpful monetarily but it also serves as an outlet for these girls to express who they are to world so far removed from their own.
"Zoom Uganda" has given girls from this community, the opportunity to be able to tell their stories and to tell their dreams and to share their aspirations and their needs with the wider world," Lwebuga said.
