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Pictures create global bond between underprivileged children
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Contact: Marina Krawczyk, 604.633.9042 (fluent in French, Spanish, English)
Peg Keenleyside, 604-720-3811 (cell), eric.peg@dccnet.com
Carol Thorbes, media/pr, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Peg Keenleyside, 604-720-3811 (cell), eric.peg@dccnet.com
Carol Thorbes, media/pr, 604.291.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
May 25, 2006
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what could children at opposite ends of a continent learn from each other by looking at pictures they’ve taken of their own world? It’s a question that an ambitious, 50-image exhibit, mounted by six students at Simon Fraser University, will endeavor to answer when it opens at SFU Vancouver (Harbour Centre campus) on May 30. The exhibition and benefit event will take place, 7:30-10:30 pm, in the Segal Room.
One of the students, Marina Krawczyk, is the founder and designer of Picture-Our-World/Nuestro Mundo en Foto. The project started out as a class assignment and has evolved into a non-profit program with a global mission. Picture-Our-World teaches photography to marginalized children in different parts of the world, and then uses Internet communication to link their communities so that they can view and discuss each other’s work.
“Our objective is to provide children with socio-economic challenges in two different communities with an opportunity to use visual communication to learn about their global neighbours,” says, Krawczyk, a West End resident. “Cross-cultural dialogue is one of the building blocks for the future of a global society.”
Familiar with the challenges facing underprivileged children in her hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Krawczyk matched up children in Buenos Aires and East Vancouver for the first project. The children got to keep the 35 mm point-and-shoot cameras on which they learned to take gritty, insightful pictures of life in their own backyard. Their pictures have been exhibited in their home schools so that parents, teachers and friends can view them.
With the help of her SFU classmates, Krawczyk is following up the Harbour Centre exhibit of all the children’s work with a similar exhibit in the fall in Buenos Aires. The students have also mounted the website www.picture-our-world.org to show Picture-Our-World work to date, and to raise funds to cover the cost of this and future projects.
Peg Keenleyside, an experienced producer and fundraiser in Delta, has helped Krawczyk come up with a sponsorship campaign for this project. Sponsors can buy advertising at Picture-Our-World events, buy a child’s photo through an on-line gallery or provide in-kind support donations and services.
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One of the students, Marina Krawczyk, is the founder and designer of Picture-Our-World/Nuestro Mundo en Foto. The project started out as a class assignment and has evolved into a non-profit program with a global mission. Picture-Our-World teaches photography to marginalized children in different parts of the world, and then uses Internet communication to link their communities so that they can view and discuss each other’s work.
“Our objective is to provide children with socio-economic challenges in two different communities with an opportunity to use visual communication to learn about their global neighbours,” says, Krawczyk, a West End resident. “Cross-cultural dialogue is one of the building blocks for the future of a global society.”
Familiar with the challenges facing underprivileged children in her hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Krawczyk matched up children in Buenos Aires and East Vancouver for the first project. The children got to keep the 35 mm point-and-shoot cameras on which they learned to take gritty, insightful pictures of life in their own backyard. Their pictures have been exhibited in their home schools so that parents, teachers and friends can view them.
With the help of her SFU classmates, Krawczyk is following up the Harbour Centre exhibit of all the children’s work with a similar exhibit in the fall in Buenos Aires. The students have also mounted the website www.picture-our-world.org to show Picture-Our-World work to date, and to raise funds to cover the cost of this and future projects.
Peg Keenleyside, an experienced producer and fundraiser in Delta, has helped Krawczyk come up with a sponsorship campaign for this project. Sponsors can buy advertising at Picture-Our-World events, buy a child’s photo through an on-line gallery or provide in-kind support donations and services.
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