Friday 16 March 2012

Day 9: Exhibition

Today was the moment the young people have all been working towards - their exhibition. The volunteers had been busy preparing for the event all day by making 250 home-made samosas to share with the guests!


The younger boys that also live in the orphanage enjoyed viewing the exhibition. They were so funny as they shuffled around the room and reminded us of ducklings!

We printed the boys chosen photographs, mounted them alongside their descriptions and displayed them in the recreation room of the orphanage. The exhibition was announced as open and members of the local community came to view the young people's images. It was fantastic to have the boys school principle present, showing her support and congratulating the young people for their effort.

Gulshan, Mangi, Katherine and Ajay.

Particularly touching was how proud the project participants were of their work. Ajay stood admiring his photographs for at least half an hour and Kiran shared with me that he thought his display was the best! It was a rewarding experience to see them all so happy.

Ajay (14) stood like this admiring his photographs for a long time. He was so proud of his work and we are so proud of him, he certainly has a natural flair for capturing images.
After the guests had spent time viewing the exhibition we projected a short photography project documentary of our 2011 'Life Through the Lens' project, made by previous volunteer Lucy. You can view this film at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d66HpNaApg

'I really liked the film and it was a very rare chance that I could participate in the photography workshops. In the future I would like to continue in something like this. I would like to thank the volunteers and staff who helped me to learn the very basics of photography' Ashu, 17.


Residents of the orphanage admiring the work of the older boys, whose effort represents as an excellent role model for the younger boys.

As the guests enjoyed the samosas the volunteers dismantled the exhibition and added the selection of images to leather hand-made photo albums, personalised with each individual name engraved onto the cover.

Presenting the young people with their personalised photo albums, we hope they are able to add more images to these in the future.
 We applaud the effort of all eight young people who participated in this project, they have been commited to learning throughout. We hope this knowledge combined with a healthy boost of confidence will provide them with real skills that they can put to good use in their future. Building relationships with them has been an absolute joy and we can't wait to return to them with intermediate and advanced photography projects.

Thank you for reading my blog and showing your support for Basti Ram. If you would like to find out more about the work we do or how you can get involved please visit www.bastiram.org email info@bastiram.org or call our UK office on +44 (0) 7515 857 865

Katherine
bastiram.katherine@gmail.com





No comments:

Post a Comment