Bor County (Machdeng Village – Baidit Payam), South Sudan – South Sudanese men repair and extend a mud dike to prevent rising water from the River Nile from flooding their village. Recently the United Nations blamed South Sudan’s worst floods in 60 years – imperiling the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people – on climate change.
© Photo by Ric Francis
Students read aloud during class. September marks National Literacy Month in Rwanda. There is an active movement throughout the country, by the government, schools, businesses and NGOs, to develop a culture of reading.
© Photo by Ric Francis
An outdoor photo exhibition, funded by the Intercultural Museum (Interkulturelt Museum), is displayed on the grounds of the Grønland Church. It features a photo-essay on barber Freddy Larssen, who has catered to the Grønland community for fifty years.
For 50-years Freddy Larssen has been cutting hair at the same salon in Grønland (Oslo), Norway. Freddy has watched the neighborhood change over the years. Standing outside the salon is Muluken Tabor, who owns and operates a second-hand shop nextdoor. Muluken is indicative of the change the neighborhood has undergone since Freddy opened shop in 1971. “When I opened you didn’t see people of color in this area, nor elsewhere in Norway for that matter, stated Freddy,” who welcomed the diversity. Today that diversity is under threat because of gentrification.
An outdoor photo exhibition displaying these photographs will open on the grounds of the Grønland Church, across the street from Freddy’s salon – 13 April 2021.
All photos by © Ric Francis
World Day Against Child Labour, on June 12th, is an International Labour Organisation (ILO) sanctioned holiday aimed at raising awareness and activism to prevent child labour. The ILO, a United Nations organization, launched World Day Against Child Labour in 2002.
According to the ILO hundreds of millions of girls and boys worldwide are involved in work that prevents them from receiving an adequate education, healthcare, leisure time and basic freedoms.
Worldwide children play key roles in livelihood strategies of income for labour constrained households, consequently they often are prevented from attending school.
Obolokome Village (Agago District), Uganda – Nighty Akwero, 7, must work in a cassava field today instead of going to school because her mother is home with an injured foot.
La Toma, Colombia – Margie Cecilia, 11-years old, mines for gold with family members at an open-pit mine.
Codong Village, Uganda – Agnes Alimo, 10, left, returned home from school with her one-year old brother, Regan Kidaga, because he would not stop crying during her class. Her sister Vicky Auma, 7, center, and a neighborhood boy, Ogen, 6, had to stay home from school to crush groundnuts.
Kalongo Town Council, Uganda – During sunrise Phillips Oluoch, 12, left, who had to stop attending school because his family could not afford school fees, waits with his mother for several village women as they head for work in the field. “I want to be a doctor,” stated Phillips.
Obolokome Village, Uganda – Ben Okidi, 8, right, and Alfred Olanya, 10, center, along with two other brothers watch over the family’s herd of cattle; they stated that they regularly miss school because of chores.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.
In Peru Mother’s Day is celebrated throughout the country on the second Sunday of each May. Peruvian mothers are honored with family meals, parties and showered with gifts.
There is a particularly popular location where Peruvians gather to socialize, over food and drinks, in honor of their mothers: the cemetery. Thousands gather at cemeteries in celebration of their deceased moms. Such was the case at The Angel Cemetery in the Barrios Altos section of Lima, Peru.
Just outside the gates of the cemetery the streets were alive with vendors selling flowers and heart-shaped “Feliz Dia Mama” (Happy Mother’s Day) balloons, to a throng of family members, young and old. The air was filled with warmth and laughter as women, children and men entered the cemetery and sought out the grave sites of their mothers. A common sight is that of men balanced on large ladders set up against multi-level mausoleums; they’re hired by families to clean and place flowers as well as balloons on hard-to-reach graves.
While for some visiting the cemetery is a solitary event, for others it is a social gathering used to catch up on the happenings of each other’s lives as they celebrate memories of their deceased mothers.
Visitors to The Angel Cemetery make their way to the burial sites of their mothers.
Evelyn Bravo Mascaro, 18, left, her mother Rosa Luz Mascaro, 40, center, and Maria Soledad Mascaro, 55, pay respect to their mother (Evelyn’s grandmother).
Margarita Taxa Segundino, 70, places flowers on the mausoleum of her mother.
Anna Maria Ruiz, left, Johnny Ruiz Fernandez, second to left, Zoila Angelica Ruiz, right-foreground, their father Wideman Ruiz Bueno, center-right, and Carlos Bustamante Ruiz (Zoila’s son) celebrate in memory of their mother (Widiman’s wife).
Visitors come and go just outside the entrance of the cemetery.
A woman takes flowers to her mother’s mausoleum.
Additional photography projects by Ric Francis can be viewed at http://www.ricfrancis.net.
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