Last week, I wrote about NGO’s and photographers, and cited a paper by Kimberly Abbott (on the Nieman Journalism Lab website) specifically about the new trend in partnerships between NGO’s and journalists in general. In that paper, she makes a lot of references to the complex ethics of such partnerships.

Each side of this partnership has ethical issues to consider. Journalists have to worry about maintaining editorial control and maintaining their audience’s trust in the truth of their reporting. Abbott sums up those questions as, “Can journalists really maintain independence when there is a stakeholder involved? And will the arrangement undermine the audience’s trust in the media, no matter how altruistic the cause?”

On the other side, NGO’s have to be very careful not to compromise the health, safety, and well-being of both their staff and their beneficiaries. Abbott writes, “Long after any collaboration produces a story, NGO’s must continue to work on the ground. If there is a perception that a group is helping one side of the conflict or the other, the lives of staffers, especially nationals, can be endangered, along with their beneficiaries.

“Compromising neutrality can also mean compromising access to vulnerable populations, or risking the ability to work at all. Governments in many countries are often looking for reasons to shut down or silence NGO’s, and affiliation with the wrong news report can give those governments the excuse they need.”

I think she sums up these ethical dilemmas very well. When I was working for the IRC in Tanzania, a number of years ago, an incident occurred that put this very set of issues into perspective for me.

And an anecdote

Our office was responsible for the medical care of about 80,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees in northwestern Tanzania, housed in 4 camps—less than ¼ of the total number of refugees housed in camps in Tanzania at that time. There were somewhere between 6 and 10 different large NGO’s working in these camps in our area, and the UNHCR ran the show.

Security in the camps was provided by the Tanzanian police force. Police came from different parts of the country to staff the camps in six-month shifts. You’d have police from Zanzibar, then police from Dodoma, then police from Dar es Salaam, changing every six months.

According to my colleagues at the various NGO’s, this meant that crime spiked every six months, as police prepared to leave the area, and thus lost any interpersonal accountability for their actions within the community.

Soon after I arrived at my job, one of these shifts was about to take place.

One day a shooting occurred in one of the camps. A fight had broken out in the market, I heard. Somehow, a police officer had been shot.

The police then went on a rampage through the camp, “looking for the perpetrator.” (There was some speculation afterward that it had been a policeman who had done the shooting—the details I learned about the incident were all very confused.) They accosted hundreds (maybe a thousand?) people, and arrested 20. Those 20 were taken to the local jail and tortured.

Because our organization was responsible for all the medical facilities in the camps, one of the doctors I worked with was asked to examine and care for the prisoners. I spoke to him when he returned from seeing them. He found that people had had broken bottles inserted into their orifices, and bicycle spokes inserted into their ears.

It seemed to me, as a newly arrived “program assistant” that we should write about this—that the police should not be allowed to get away with this kind of thing. I started working on an article to be sent out to the head office, in New York.

Meanwhile the NGO’s all held a meeting. They discussed the issue, and what would happen to the various constituencies involved if word of this behavior got out.

On the one hand, the police needed to be held accountable, and this was a terrifying occurrence. On the other hand, if the police (and therefore the national government) lost face, and were made to look incompetent, it would be very likely that major changes to refugee policies would be enacted, perhaps even expelling people from the country (and pushing them back into the war they had fled from). The way stations were already ludicrously overloaded at that time, filled with people who were coming into Tanzania and waiting for official approval in order to move into a camp. Sleeping structures built to house 40 people were housing two and three times as many. Men and women were all crammed in together. Rapes were occurring. People had nothing to do and were despondent. All of those people were being made to suffer already because of Tanzanian politics. And the IRC ran the way stations—they were tied to and responsible for all these people.

The NGO’s decided not to release any information about the torture.

I deleted my article. I was aghast. But I could also see the reasons for their decisions. The long-term benefits to transparency seemed to outweigh the short-term benefits in theory, but in real life, it was impossible to choose to jeopardize so many lives.

That’s just one reason why NGO’s and journalists have to recognize and understand their differences, even as they find new ways to collaborate. Stories like this one need to be told, but it cannot always be the NGO’s who tell them.

And man, these situations are so incredibly complicated. I’m still trying to make sense out of these things…and failing.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

You can lie to the sun, but you cannot lie to the rain.

-Haitian saying

Place du Marron Inconu, says a lot about Haiti today.  This powerful monument to the end of slavery is surrounded by tents and shacks, and stands in front of the crumbled White House, The Haitian Central Government’s offices. The living conditions are dismal, with rains coming almost daily, meaning that people to stand all night because of the water in their homes. There is no place to go; and those with concrete floors are considered lucky.  Blue tarps are everywhere, and protect people from the heat of the sun, but when it rains water is everywhere. This is hard to see, and the stories are difficult to process; it is hard to rationally juxtapose a thriving social square with the masses of humanity now living there.

The Place de Marron Camp mainly consists of people who lived in nearby neighborhoods, and  are now living in tents and squalor. The number has continued to grow, indicating that indigents from other slums in the city are coming here as well for food and water. Not everyone lived in homes before the quake; making it difficult to discern the chronically homeless from the recently displaced.

The water situation is a perfect case study for the complexity of delivering  continuing aid: The government decided to stop the free water delivery since  it was impacting the market for the private water delivery services (here the government has not assumed the responsibility of providing water to the people).  Now many people are continuing without work and are not able to pay for the water. Mercy Corps has established a program of water vouchers for people, trade-able at local private vendors, which is a good solution. But there are so many displaced persons–the number is now estimated at 1.5m–that every problem is magnified, and every solution dwarfed. The contrast between macroeconomic solutions and basic daily human need  is complex and immediate.

At Place de Marron Camp there is a strong sense of both supportive camaraderie and angry desperation. Preparation for the Monday protest again President Preval was ongoing, with angry demands for work, food, solutions.  The leadership and response vacuum from the central government continues, and despair and anger are mounting.

I am in Haiti for a week as a student PhotoPhilanthropist to do a shoot with MercyCorps, shooting images of their relief projects as well as general pictures around Haiti in order to help them tell their story.

On our first day walking the camp at the Champs de Mar, across the street from the National Palace, we were constantly being beckoned into  homes by people wanting their stories to be heard. As I ducked into this house I spotted a shard of mirror which I used to take a portrait of this woman while showing as best I could her living situation at the same time.

This photo was taken on the Champs de Mar.

After an evening of shooting in downtown Port au Prince we were headed back when we passed a large pile of garbage burning by the side of the road. I quickly hopped out to take a few photos of the flames.

We woke up early the next day to visit the marketplaces as they were being set up downtown. After passing stalls selling rice, shoes, flowers, or fruits, we came up to one that really caught my eye. There were full of all kinds of birds: turkeys, chickens, doves, geese. These doves, which were displayed out in front of the others, posed perfectly for the picture.

We visited this school on our second day in Haiti. Mercy Corps is working with the Fist Lady of Haiti to support getting kids back into school; in this case, they are using school buses as classroms for art.

On our way out to the coastal town of Jacmél, we made what was meant to be a quick stop in the town of Leogáne, one of the towns closest to the epicenter. Leogáne is not a large town, and 90% of it’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the quake. As we explored an old manor that had been hit hard, we noticed an old barn sitting behind it that remained more or less intact. This man welcomed us in and told us of the history of place. They had used the area, the barn and two houses (only half of one still standing) to run a coffee business. In the barn we could still see scales and other tools. Before we left he agreed to let us take a few portraits of him.

Before leaving Leogáne we decided to make another quick stop at the beach to see how the Haitians were enjoying their holiday (May 18th is Flag Day). As we walked out to the beach we were welcomed by the sight of many huge boats up on the shore, in the process of being repaired. These ships made for great props as a few children and I climbed all over them.

We got an early morning start today and headed out to the streets of Jacmél at 5:30am. Starting at the markets in downtown, I slowly began to make my way down to the beach, were the rains from the previous night had full of puddles of all sizes.

Copyright Fazal Sheikh, “Minal Sleeping” from the project Ladli

Fazal Sheikh is an artist and activist based in Zurich, Switzerland. His work has been widely exhibited, in institutions ranging from the Tate Modern to the Princeton University Art Museum to small huts in rural India. He has collaborated with numerous foundations and non-governmental-organizations, and he has won, among many other awards, a MacArthur Prize.

I asked him to do an interview with the PhotoPhilanthropy blog because he approaches collaboration, strategic partnerships and accessibility in a way that I find very inspiring.

I began our interview by asking how Fazal made his way to photography. He told me about his transition from ceramics to photography, and about how he figured out what to focus on while doing a Fulbright project in Kenya. He was there at a time when a huge number of people were fleeing Somalia and Sudan and seeking refuge in Kenya. So he traveled to the refugee camps, in the north.

FS: It seemed such an obvious thing to do, this simple act, but others had not approached the elders of the community, to ask for their willingness and permission. So I realized that was a very simple and direct way to begin working.

To visit a place, with an extreme vulnerability—which you have when you arrive in such a situation…I felt that I didn’t quite know how to render it. In fact I felt very intimidated about the idea of even beginning to photograph.

I traveled that first time with journalists and photojournalists—they weren’t inhibited at all about beginning to work and move through the camp and make these images. And I think that was not my sensibility. I was fearful of the idea of trespass.

And over the years, since then—that was in the early 90’s—I’ve started to realize that this fear that you have when you first arrive in a place is a good thing. Because although you may not know how to render the place, you’re also open to what it has to offer you.

And in that regard, the act of collaboration is kind of essential, because if there is any strength in the work I think it’s largely borne of what the people have given to this process.  They have said, look, this is the thing that’s interesting about our community. You may have read such and such, but we feel that this story of this person is important. Or, we’ve got this problem that nobody’s talking about.

EG: How does the way you make a picture relate to your goals as an activist and as an artist?

Well, I’m not very grand in terms of declaring that I’m going to single-handedly change any given issue. I think that kind of heroism is a bit overvalued. I think the best that we can do is begin to nurture a conversation.

And so your priorities when you’re making an image come through very clearly in the images that are produced. I’m very careful about the nature of trespass and I’ve opted for very formal portraits in the notion that it gives the person the chance to confront the camera: to confront me and by extension, the viewer.

And I think that, for me, that has value because it kind of levels the playing field.

You may have images that are made in a more photojournalistic realm, which do garner funds for these aid organizations, and I think they probably do that very effectively, probably much more effectively than do mine.

But, having said that, I think that it’s important to expand the vocabulary. Because the notion of just giving money to something to assuage your guilt is a kind of hierarchical relationship, wherein I as the giver am always above the person who is the recipient of those funds. And I never have the notion that I could be in that position, so I don’t adjust my behavior in the world to keep that from happening in the future.

But I think that’s a subtler and perhaps more complicated interpretation of what making images means. I wouldn’t like to dismiss those other kinds of images, I’m just not particularly comfortable making them myself.

And I can’t get away from work that is in sync with my own sensibilities. If you spend all this time in remote places, you’d like to be making work that you can live with, that you can stand by.

In the war photographer or photojournalist there’s always this degree of heroism. And I think there’s not much that’s heroic about going to a place to live for a month amidst people who live there for decades. You know. That’s heroism.

I think that the best thing you can do is just be receptive to what people have to tell you; be a kind of a vehicle—not a grand vehicle, but just somebody [who can] go and respectfully listen.

EG: I want to ask you about the Human Rights series. It seems to me from watching you over the last few years that your partnerships have become more sophisticated and complex.

FS: I hope I’ve become a little more sophisticated!

Initially, I think it was around the year 2000, I was a little bit unsettled by the idea that, in Afghanistan, I made a book that cost, I don’t know, 60 or 80 dollars, far beyond the reach of affordability for someone who was in the book. And I thought, well, wouldn’t it be interesting to try and make work that would be a little bit more accessible, and disseminate it, distribute it in a more democratic fashion?

So, although I continue to do the books, I also try to engage projects which allow that information to be filtered out, usually free of charge, and sometimes even going to people who don’t expect to be receiving the material.

EG: How do you do that?

FS: Well there are many different ways and I’m not always sure how successful they are. Some are more politically motivated: I did a piece called Ramadan Moon, which I did in the Netherlands, wherein we distributed I think 1,000 copies of that book. They were mainly distributed to politicians, lawmakers, the media, and governmental officials in the Netherlands, because it was about a kind of impropriety in their handling of immigrant cases.

But more recently, for instance…with the two Indian volumes [Moksha and Ladli]…we produced a series of posters, with the Open Society Institute—the Soros Foundation—to be distributed to 1,000 institutions in India. Women’s rights groups, universities, places that could house a set of posters and then mount an exhibition if they so chose, and then the posters would also remain in whatever archive was receiving them.

Again the idea was that you could make something free and accessible and in this case very political because it traversed the region from early life through old age and what it means for women in contemporary Indian society.

These are all experiments, but some of them are more effective than others. You have to accept that perhaps 30% of those that are received, people don’t really engage with, because it comes as a surprise often. But on the other hand, the poster series has had hundreds of exhibitions from it. Again, places that never would mount a proper exhibition; in rural areas, sometimes just a local hut, outside, taped up on the walls.

So to engage different facets of working: I’m happy and proud that the work is shown in museums–it also goes to university museums where you can engage with students. But having said that, it’s nice to imagine that people can look at the books on the internet or they can see a poster exhibition in rural India.

EG: How do you deal with giving people copies of pictures?

FS: It depends on the project. In the early projects I worked on I used Polaroid film, and these were people, generally speaking, who had never been photographed before, so the act of this collaboration and formal portraiture was well-orchestrated in the camps.

And then I would take the books back. And on several occasions I’ve used the books, years later, as a means by which to try and trace people, for instance in the Somali camps. And then more recently, let’s say in Vrindavan, which is the city of the widows, going back and forth. I mean I was revisiting the same people over the course of a couple of years, so I would either give them pictures then, or come back with pictures, or send the book when it was finished.

It’s important, wherever possible, to make somebody understand what the act of documenting really means. When you ask somebody for their permission, do they understand what it means if they are from a really rural area, that their image is going to be in a book or in an exhibition or some such thing?

And on occasion I’ve failed in that regard, because they are giving their testimony as a kind of catharsis and expecting it, in a way, to be brought forward, because they were claiming their story. I’m thinking more of the Somali images, one component of which were these voices of women who had been assaulted.

And I was concerned at the time that somebody would be reduced to that one moment of trauma in their lives, and so I didn’t publish them, and only published them years later when I did the second book. It was called A Camel for the Son and was about, essentially, a decade of life on the borders. And then I realized, in fact, if somebody has been strong enough to endure and to overcome such trauma, maybe it’s important to honor that, you know? And that I had in some way erred in not publishing their stories.

There are times when someone offers a poignant story and you have to be sensitive to when it’s appropriate to bring it forward, and you also have to be aware of where your own inhibitions or inabilities lie. As much as possible.

EG: I was looking at A Camel for the Son and noticing that you’ve had it translated into Somali. And has that made a difference? Has that changed the way you’ve been able to interact with the subjects and with other people afterwards?

FS: That’s hard for me to really judge. It was, for me, essential that it be in the language that they could also access; even on the internet it’s in their language. And I try to do that. I tried to do that also later, in the Indian volumes. Again to make things accessible.

In general it’s very difficult to mark a tangible impact of these things.

But I think that’s not so important. I think the best thing you can do is to put your work out there in a respectful manner, and, of course, hope that you’re not working in a vacuum. Which, I mean, I guess I’m confident enough to say I don’t think I’m working in a vacuum, but I also don’t want to declare that this work is certainly going to impact the situation in a certain way.

EG: How have you selected your projects?

FS: The early projects were very much based upon this dual narrative: one was the document of the place and the people, and the other was a kind of exploration of my own heritage, whether it was in Kenya with the legacy of my father; or, after working on that for several years, I went to work on the piece about Afghanistan, which was also exploring the legacy left me by my grandfather, my namesake.

And after that I think I’ve been drawn to things that are related to me in a more subtle way; sometimes an emotional, psychological resonance. Particularly issues which are not given a great deal of attention by others.

I think if you’re going to spend so much time and emotion dedicated to something, you want it to be something you really care about and something that hasn’t been attended to in a way you think might be useful.

So, for instance, the ones that, at the outset, you might say are less directly linked to me and my history would be Moksha, right? Which is a story about a town to which widows migrate when they lose their husbands.

But for me this was interesting as a challenge, because I wanted to make a piece that, when one looked at it, you’d imagine that it could only have been made by a woman. So not only to forge bonds across a religious, cultural, social divide, but also even to reach across gender. To explore the idea that maybe it’s possible to make a piece…in which you can meet somebody on a human level that transcends your gender divisions.

And I think a lot of the emotional tone of that book is very much in sync with some of my internal history, which is less readily described.

EG: How did you find out about the widows?

FS: This was sort of unusual for my working process, but I had read a small piece many years ago about this place to which widows were migrating, and I just thought it was kind of fascinating as an idea: the notion of exile, solace, hope all mingled together.

And so I determined to make one trip to visit the community. And, as in most of my projects, I never know if there’s going to be a means by which to make something. But I think that it’s worthwhile just going at first to see, and to explore whether you feel comfortable there.

It was the same thing as going to the African camps, in a way. You go with this extraordinary interest but also with this vulnerability of not being sure if you can do anything. And like I said—I don’t know if I said that clearly enough—but that moment of being really vulnerable has a great value, because it implies an openness.

It’s a moment of dread and fear for me each time.

But almost every project that I’ve worked on, I’ve had that feeling wherein you’re confronted with things that are new, that you don’t understand, that are at times intimidating. But though you are vulnerable and even on the defensive, you’re more malleable. You carry some of your priorities forward and they meet what the place has to tell you.

Fazal Sheikh’s upcoming projects involve a mid-career survey of his portraits and the final installment of his trilogy of books based upon India. Loosely speaking, he says, that volume is about heaven.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

James Nachtwey, Afghanistan

Recently, I’ve been thinking about war photography, and the moral arguments that commonly support it. I’ve been seeing people use those arguments to advocate for certain practices in photography in general, and I think there are problems with that.

To me, war-phototography is not the same as non-violent-photography.

For example, in the movie War Photographer, by Christian Frei, photojournalist James Nachtwey describes his process like this: “In a war, the normal codes of civilized behavior are suspended. It would be unthinkable in so called normal life, to go into someone’s home, where the family is grieving over the death of a loved one, and spend long moments photographing them. It simply wouldn’t be done.

“Those pictures could not have been made unless I was accepted by the people I’m photographing. It’s simply impossible to photograph moments such as those without the complicity of the people I’m photographing; without the fact that they welcomed me, that they accepted me, that they wanted me to be there.”

The film shows Nachtwey building relationships, asking questions, and getting to know communities in a conscientious way, even as it also shows him taking pictures in the midst of explosions. But the film emphasizes the picture-taking, not the communication, which I think sends a false message.

I can see how, in a violent situation, neither the photographer nor the subject might be concerned with asking permission or communicating verbally. I can see how permission could be implicit. But I also know that it is easier not to ask permission. It is easier not to communicate. And it’s very easy to misunderstand.

So I’m wary of implicit permission, especially when it’s applied to non-violent situations. I often hear photographers say they are “giving a voice to the voiceless” or “bearing witness.” And when that is the aim, I think that some level of collaboration between photographer and subject—some kind of overt permission—is necessary for the image to have a positive impact.

In a fantastic essay for the online journal Soundscapes, Hans Durrer confronts this issue, saying, “In times when (some) photographers hold celebrity status, it is useful to be reminded that a good photograph does not solely depend on the photographer’s ability to choose the right subject, location and light, but also on the chemistry and the collaboration, between photographer and subject…Despite my deep sympathy for socially inclined photographers, when the people portrayed feel ashamed of their portraits, there clearly is something wrong with this kind of photography.”

That is just an electric statement: When the people portrayed feel ashamed of their portraits, there is something wrong with that kind of photography.

This doesn’t only happen in journalism. It also happens in collaborations between photographers and nonprofit organizations. I spoke to Benjamin Chesterton the other day, who runs the multimedia production company duckrabbit and the blog A Developing Story and he said, “It’s amazing to me that these NGOs’ awareness campaigns will say they’re giving a voice to the voiceless, but you never hear a single actual voice from the community that’s being represented.” This is happening right now with UNICEF’s new Put It Right campaign. Photo/audio slideshows that duckrabbit produces use voices in an incredibly powerful way, as in this one made for MSF (Doctors Without Borders).

Artist Fazal Sheikh photographs war and the issues that surround it, and is a photographer who takes permission seriously, and emphasizes it. Rather than seeing permission as a burden, Sheikh actually builds better projects and makes better pictures by asking permission. Which is intuitive, but not if you’ve just been watching War Photographer.

In his introduction to the book A Camel for the Son, about Somali refugees living in Kenya, Sheikh writes, “I arrived at the camp at Liboi in February 1992 on a UNHCR flight from Nairobi along with news journalists, most of whom were staying for one or two days. The war was fresh and the competition for pictures and stories was fierce.

“I decided to stay on longer and asked one of the Somali leaders whether he would allow me to work in the camp. Some weeks earlier, on the Sudanese border, I had asked an elder the same question. ‘Why are you asking me?’ was his reply. ‘I am only a refugee.’ But his tone made it clear what a violation it was for the refugees to have strangers moving through their communities without their consent.”

This is someone I can look up to. This is someone who has created a process that lines up with his stated goals. He also makes incredibly beautiful images, whose beauty has a lot to do with the energy, self-assertion, and self-possession that people display in front of his lens.

Seeing the strength, the individuality, and the self conscious composure of his subjects, I feel devastated and enraptured; humbled and uplifted. I feel sad. I feel educated. I feel inspired. And I feel proud to be the audience at the end of a photographic process I believe in. By making pictures that his subjects are not ashamed of, he allows me, as the audience, to shed my shame as well.

Eliza Gregory writes a weekly blog for PhotoPhilanthropy.

Before the earthquake, knowing that Haiti had a number of about 380 000 orphans, Orphfund was in contact with two communities and was planning a project for 2010 to help vulnerable children. Now, children in the “hatless country”, as Haiti-born author Dany Laferrière calls it, are in much greater need for assistance than ever before. According to the United Nations’ Children Fund, an estimated 1.26 million children – approximately 700,000 of them school-aged – have been directly affected by the earthquake in Haiti. This is a frightening number and it is difficult to estimate how long it will take before this age group recovers from this personal and national trauma caused by the earthquake.

At the moment, world organizations are working towards reuniting families that were displaced or separated during the earthquake. This colossal task is crucial within the chaos and aid needed. This is especially important for young children who are left alone, without knowing their address or their relatives, thus becoming at high risk of trafficking. Let me emphasize that Orphfund does not specialise in emergency or immediate aid. We rather bring help children by building and rebuilding of communities following horrific events or crisis, such as this one. We have projects in Cambodia, Tibet, Sierra Leone and Kenya, and our next projects will take place in Uganda and Haiti.

We are planning on going to the Leogane area in about one year from now, with a team of volunteers. In addition to the building of schools and orphanages, many ideas are in the talks, such as farming and tree nursery projects. However, at the moment, the situation on the ground is far too chaotic to have a detailed idea of what our project will consist of. We will know more details as time unfolds within the next months.

In the mean time, we are raising as many funds as possible among people and hold fundraising events in different parts of the world, so that we will be able to help as much as possible when the time comes. ALL funds received are going to be 100% used for the rebuilding project.

I am sure that some of you readers have already generously donated to charities providing aid and relief for immediate needs. Good job!
-If you did NOT donate for Haiti yet, I strongly encourage you to do, and by helping our initiative.
-If you did already donate for Haiti, I still encourage you to squeeze in a few more dollars from your pocket, to help this rebuilding project, because MANY funds will be needed to truly help this contry.

For donations (there is NO minimum amount, any amount will be greatly appreciated!), please write anneso.orphfund@gmail.com and I will explain to you how to donate, according to your country.
Also, if you are interested in helping or if you want to know more about our projects or about us, send me a message to the above email.

Thank You!
Anne-Sophie Cardinal, co-Director of Orphfund Israel, who is watching this world right now and thinking that Haiti will need help beyond words, to get back on track… (but with your help, we can do it!)

Now that Hurricane Ike has blown through the Carribiean, Gulf of Mexico, and Texas, the cleanup and rescue efforts have begun in full force. The above photo from IFRC (on Flickr) is one of several depicting the beginnings of rebuilding from Ike and other storms in Haiti. Boston.com’s The Big Picture also has some amazing photos of the aftermath of Ike in Texas.

If you’ve found other photos of the storm, it’s aftermath, or cleanup efforts, let us know in the comments below.

Coinciding with the opening of the Beijing Olympics on August 8, 2008, this group will launch an international campaign to bring Burma’s General Than Shwe and the military regime in Burma (officially known as the State Peace and Development Council or SPDC) to justice by referring them to the International Criminal Court.

The B8 Events will bring together artists, community leaders, activists, and the public. Clad in the scarlet red that symbolizes the clothing of the Burmese monks, attendees across the globe will represent international solidarity with Burma. Representatives from the International Burmese Monks Organization will be at each event to show a short video they produced, and to briefly address attendees. Throughout the events, rotating slides will show people throughout the world holding simple cardboard signs calling for justice in Burma.

by tarotastic on Flickr

Just recently, the WHO published a photo essay portraying the damage and recovery efforts in southern Myanmar:

Humanitarian relief efforts are now shifting from the emergency response to early recovery. The emphasis is on restoring health facilities and providing essential services, including measles and polio immunizations, and nutritional campaigns. This photo story describes the activities undertaken by WHO and its partners.

Click here to view the photo essay.

Mercy Corp recently posted a slideshow of powerful images of the earthquake, the survivors, and efforts to rebuild, and it is definitely worth watching.

Click here to view the slideshow, or visit the Mercy Corp website.