Bridges to Understanding Using Digital Photography to Support a Cause Article rating: 10.00 |
The first time Phil Borges ever held a camera, he was 12 years old. Today, he’s putting cameras in the hands of children about the same age through a program called Bridges. The result: page after page of photography and sound from Peru, Tibet, Seattle, San Juan; from Arctic Village, Alaska and Raleigh, North Carolina.
“It was a thought that started germinating about five years ago,” Borges says. He was leading a National Geographic trip from Ecuador to Peru, across a border that had been closed for 60 years because of war. Reporters showed up to cover the event.
“One of them asked me point blank, ‘what do you think of what your government is doing over here?” and Borges was at a loss. What was the government doing over here? Defoliating tracts of land it turned out, and killing cocoa plants.
After that, he took a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. After that, 9/11 shook the country.
“It became apparent that I didn’t know much about what was happening in the world,” Borges realized.
By that point, the 12-year-old with the camera was a professional photographer and international lecturer, with books published and photography in major permanent exhibits. In 1998 Photo Media Magazine named him Photoperson of the Year. Originally educated as a dentist, he is the founder of the nonprofit Blue Earth Alliance, which preserves threatened cultures and environments through photography.
Borges has always loved traveling, and ever since he took a trip to Mexico in his mid-20s, he’s focused on developing countries, sometimes spending as much as 60 to 70 percent of his time out of the United States.
The trip to Mexico, Borges says, was “just for adventure.” What he found there was inspiration. “It was such a revelation, the differences that existed, especially at that time [the early 1960s].
“There were strong family values,” Borges remembers. “People didn’t have that much, but they came together every night at this square. The women would talk, the men would play music together, lovers would walk with their arms around each other.”
Borges sees Bridges as a way to preserve these close-to-land-and-family cultures. Currently in the process of becoming a 501-C3 organization and supported by partners including Rotary International, Canon, National Geographic and Microsoft, each Bridges classroom consists of three elements: a curriculum, a web interface and a mentorship. Classrooms across the globes partner through the internet -- eight so far, and a new classroom in Kenya will join the program this October/November.
The result is a dialogue with their partner schools, guided by Bridges’ curriculum. “They don’t learn about each other,” as Borges puts it, “they learn with and from each other.”
It’s a different kind of learning than in traditional classrooms. Students aren’t being asked to answer the names of capitals or major exports. They’re answering questions such as, “What makes someone in your culture beautiful?” “What foods do you eat?” “What do you consider taboo?”
That freedom to act without worrying about what’s correct comes out in their photography as well.
“Kids aren’t afraid of making mistakes. They’ll do things you wouldn’t think of doing -- shooting their shadows, shooting at weird angles. Some of it is absolutely no good, but they come up with complete jewels.”
The resulting web pages -- www.bridgesweb.org -- is a record of words, images and sounds from children’s lives around the world, invaluable at a time when it’s estimated half the world’s languages are being lost.
Bridges is in the process of becoming a 501-C3 organization. Borges hopes to form classrooms in new countries -- countries under consideration include China, Morocco, New Zealand, Australia -- and Pakistan, though Borges is waiting on that one: “Now it’s a little dangerous. I’m waiting for things to cool down.”
If you would like to find more about these programs simply click either of following links to view full details online...