Introducing my new slideshow:
I started volunteer work for
CARE in 1991 - hesitant
Aid without racism?
With my experiences from the American racial scene I saw a tremendous racism in the relationship between donator and recipient. I was so depressed that I totally gave up my enthusiasm for development assistance - one of the reasons American Pictures closed down in Europe and moved to America. I saw no alternative way at the time.
Therefore I would only promise CARE to look at their projects and only make a slide-show if I could whole- heartedly support them. Well, I ended up being absolutely carried away with their work. The racist relationship I anticipated seemed completely absent - mainly because all work was carried out by natives - not by highly paid white foreigners surrounding themselves in a barbed wire secured affluence and a corrupting negative life style.
While such tends to increase the psychological gaps in the world - leading to crime and the killing of incentive - I now saw the opposite in CARE: that their native employees - although of urban origin - live with and learn from the peasants. This, they say, helps to decrease their own psychological gap to the peasants thus promoting initiative and mutual feelings of dependency.
This is a brief and inadequate account of articles I have written in the Danish media about my reasons for working with CARE: "Development aid and racism"
Working in Bolivia
In Bolivia I am engaged by CARE to follow the CADENA
project over a number of years. CADENA is financed by the
Danish government and works to improve the resource base
of 4,000 farm families in Chuquisaca through better
management of natural resources and rehabilitation of
degraded and eroded land. It includes community
organization and training in agro forestry and sustainable
agriculture, environmental education, rural credit, and
construction of irrigation systems and storage
I made a slide-show about these efforts
which I tour with in Danish schools. A Spanish version
has been shown in Bolivia and an English version is being
CARE USA. It has just been
updated as I in 1999 returned to Bolivia with CARE Denmark's patron prince Joachim. and made
of the Incas - with prince Joachim among Bolivia¨s Indians."
Working in Nepal
In Nepal I am currently working on a similar show - primarily about women in the Syangja Project. This aims at promoting sustainable watershed management among 7,200 families through construction of drinking water, irrigation and landslide control systems.
Also I have photographed CARE's work to preserve the rain forest in Thailand and future plans include a show about CARE's work in Vietnam.