Zanmi Lakay

Photo of the Week – #6

Jen — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:16:07 +0000

We skipped a few weeks of Photo of the Week to give all of you the chance to look at the newest student gallery of photographs taken after the earthquake, and now we’re back and celebrating Kanaval in Haiti!

Happy Kanaval!

“The Atibruno”

2011©Fedno Lubin, age 17, (ACFFC), February 2011. Jacmel, Haiti

“The Atibruno is a peasant, and some say peasants are like donkeys, and that they are very stupid. But we know that peasants are not stupid. That’s why we put clothes, the trousers, the shoes on the donkey…,” words from Tira Jorssend explaining his Mardi Gras troupe in an excerpt from the book Kanaval by Leah Gordon.

Care Bag items and tax deductible funds needed for our upcoming trip to Haiti!

Jen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:54:07 +0000

We do what we can, and with your help we are providing basic resources directly to children in need.

Food and supplies (rice, beans, oil, fruit, candles, etc.) will be purchased at the local markets in Haiti for kids in our programs and our partner organizations. We’re also in need of funds for airline luggage donation bag fees, batteries for our Photography Workshops, and immediate Outreach services for homeless kids.
Wish list for Care Bags: toothbrushes, large toothpaste, bars of soap, travel size shampoo/conditioners, new t-shirts, afro combs, Vitamin C candy, small notebooks/pens, decks of cards, mini dominos, beach balls, colored chalk. If you are local, we can arrange pick ups and deliveries.

We are visiting two orphanages new to us to assess what we can help with, and bringing donations to another in Port-au-Prince where Ralph and Kensley now live and would also like to provide them with a few meals and extra school supplies.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

After the Earthquake – photos by Zanmi Lakay students

Jen — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:21:25 +0000

We are honored to share with everyone what Haiti looked like through the eyes of children.

Here is the first full published gallery of photos taken by Zanmi Lakay’s photojournalism students from our partner organizations Kole Zepol in Cité Soleil and Art Creation Foundation for Children (ACFFC) in Jacmel during our Photography Workshops in January/February 2010 after the earthquake. These kids wanted to hold cameras in their hands, cover specific assignments, and worked through their own trauma from behind the lens. We are so proud of these amazing young photographers who challenged themselves to do good work and wanted the world to see Haiti through Haitian eyes.

We held off showing them here until now because there was a possibility that the photos would be published elsewhere. A few of these photos were published on the New York TImes Lens Blog in February 2010, and many were on the walls of galleries in exhibitions in Miami, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The Globe and Mail also hired eight of our students to help document the rebuilding of their community in Jacmel.

Zanmi Lakay Volunteer Kerry Rodgers – Artist and Humanitarian

Jen — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:44:21 +0000

We wanted to share this great article published in The Flame from Claremont Graduate University about the fabulous Kerry Rodgers who volunteered with us in Jacmel last year for Jouk Li Jou Kan Foto. Her generosity and talent is endless and the kids loved her. We were so lucky to have Kerry and her husband, Mark Olsen, on our team!

Photo of the Week – #5

Jen — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:36:43 +0000

Wishing everyone peace (lapè) in the New Year!

Concert in Les Cayes

Members of Lafanmi Selavi’s Serum Band play a concert fro the town of Les Cayes promoting Aristide’s message of “You can’t have peace in your head until you have peace in your stomach.”

1997©Jennifer Cheek Pantaléon

Photo of the Week – #4

Jen — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:26:02 +0000

Some of our very first School Sponsorship students. Two of the young boys are orphan brothers – Ralph and Kensley (2nd from L and far R) – and the other three are children from homeless families all living together in the abandoned building that was once Lafanmi Selavi, a home for street children in Port-au-Prince.

2009©Jennifer Pantaléon

Our 2012 Calendar is here! Enjoy the work of our students all year long!

Jen — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:11:59 +0000

Zanmi Lakay has calendars for sale! They are 11″ x 17″, full color, the months and days of the week are in Kréyol, and it features 12 beautiful photographs taken by our awesome photo students during Jouk Li Jou Kan Foto 2011, our first annual Photo Camp for children in Haiti.

Here is the cover. You can send a check, purchase directly from the blog (thank you Guy for the special sidebar easy checkout), or contact me if you’re local – we can arrange delivery. Cost is $25.00 each, and $30.50 if we need to mail.

Photo of the Week – #3

Jen — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:37:40 +0000

We love this image and made it part of a set of postcards many years ago. Edy, the photographer, is now 30 years old and has a beautiful daughter of his own, Naphtalie, in our School Sponsorship Program. Here’s a link to more of our students’ photo galleries: http://www.zanmilakayblog.org/?page_id=149

A great shot taken with a manual SLR camera and Tri-X film during our very first Photography Workshops in 1997 at Lafanmi Selavi.

Photo of the Week – #2

Jen — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:29:50 +0000

Although we gave out specific assignments during our Photography Workshops after the earthquake, what our students actually did – making the decision as a group – was to challenge themselves to shoot the stories of their lives better than all those foreign photographers coming into their country. We told them to go for it!
We all love this shot by Lamar, one of our stars from Kolézépol in Cité Soleil, who walked all around downtown Port-au-Prince finding moments that captured the devastation of his capital city.

A woman walks our of the shadows of completely collapsed buildings in Port-au-Prince. February 2010.

Photo of the Week – #1

Jen — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 08:10:11 +0000

(Our photography experiences including documentation of our work and the photographs taken by our students needs to be shared so we’re starting ‘Photo of the Week’, a new visual treat featuring images along with a few words from the vast Zanmi Lakay archives. Enjoy!)

Back in 2004 we were teaching street children in our Photography Workshops how to use shutter speeds and fstops with manual SLR film cameras, but we only had a few and the kids needed to share. I made each student a cardboard camera to practice ‘seeing’ with, and I called them ‘Nikons’ because at that time everyone in Haiti was calling cameras ‘kodaks’.

Jn Marc is still with Zanmi Lakay. He was elated with the refurbished laptop we gave him in February, and just recently finally found a room to rent after living in a tent in Champs Mars since the earthquake.

Jn Marc practices seeing with his cardboard camera.
2004 February Caritas Saint Antoine Photography Workshop, Port-au-Prince