Travel

The Dentist

This is Karina Sotero, my favourite dominican dentist. Aged just 23, she is a fully qualified dentist and runs her own surgery in La Romana in The Dominican Republic. Multi-lingual, clever and charming, she was a sponsored child in a Compassion project with her sponsor continuing to sponsor her through college.

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Compassion People

A few pictures from my recent trip to the US. These were all quick, 2 minute portraits of people who took part in The Compassion Convention in Colorado Springs last month. Most are church pastors and  all are advocates of the supremely worthy Compassion charity which works through american churches finding people to sponsor children in developing countries. Not being a god believing person, it was fascinating to meet people with such strong religious convictions, They had really good teeth and were actually very nice. photocrati gallery

Village People

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A few local people from Quetzali, near San Marcos in the San Pedro district of Guatemala, the tiny village I've just returned from. I was mainly taking pictures of the children who benefit from the local church project sponsored by the american charity, Compassion. As with most strong communities the women seemed to be at its it's heart, cooking, teaching and looking out for the children, most of whom survive in the most basic accommodation with little to eat. The few men I met including the gent in the hat here, worked by the river breaking stones with a sledgehammer and loading them into truck. Proper back-breaking work but they are entertained by the man in the blue shirt who turned out to also be the local clown and showed us a few tricks including this umbrella "illusion".
More about sponsoring children through Compassion here: http://www.compassionuk.org/

At School In Guatemala

photocrati gallery I'm just back from Guatemala. An amazing trip, photographing kids and village life for Compassion who are an american charity that organise and promote sponsorship of Third World children. There's hundreds of pictures to edit but I thought I'd start by posting up a few from our visit to the village school, the contrast of which, to my previous post of my own children's school is stark to say the least.

During rainy season and after a wet and at times, hairy 6 hour journey from Guatemala City, we (that's me and a 3 man film crew) arrived on the last day of term at Qeutzali village primary school. Apart from the school having large classes and an absolute lack of any facilities except the enthusiasm of the teachers, what hit me beyond how happy they seamed, was how small the children were. Most of the shots here are from a class of 11 year-olds, nearly all of whom were smaller than my 5 year-old daughter and this is simply due to the fact that they are malnourished and many including 11 year-old Elizabeth (in the white top with pale stripes) survive on just one meal a day. More on Elizabeth in later posts as she was the focus of the story we were there to shoot.