FOTOKIDS Press Release

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By Josefa Ratzán of Santiago Atitlan who Won Honorary Mention in the Photo Imaging Educators Association Annual Competition in the 9th Grade and Under Category © FOTOKIDS 2008

Portland, Oregon, April 19, 2008 – Child Aid, a thriving Portland-based non profit, serving thousands of needy children and their families in Guatemala and Oaxaca, Mexico, is honored to host the FOTOKIDS exhibit April 19-20.  FOTOKIDS is a project that provides young people living in the dump as well as the poorest barrios of urban and rural Guatemala with educational and artistic opportunities.  Four of the students involved in the project will be in the Pacific Northwest participating in the Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle featuring talks by the Dalai Lama and Rev. Desmond Tutu.  The students will present the Dalai Lama with a copy of a book written and photographed by the children from Guatemala for the children of Tibet.

The FOTOKIDS exhibit will be hosted at the Mark Woolley Gallery at the Wonder Ballroom located at 128 NE Russell in Portland (near NE Broadway and MLK).  The public is invited to come and see this remarkable body of work on April 19th from 11 am – 10 pm with a special reception hosted by Child Aid starting at 6:30 pm and a talk by the students at 7 pm.  The gallery will also be open Sunday, April 20th from noon to 6 pm.

FOTOKIDS began 16 years ago when ex-Reuters photographer, Nancy McGirr, gave cameras to six kids in Guatemala City’s garbage dump and began what was to become an internationally renowned project, “Out of the Dump”.  As the school expanded to children in other marginal areas of Guatemala and Honduras, it was renamed FOTOKIDS and currently operates in six different communities teaching photography, video, graphic and web design to 150 young people.  FOTOKIDS now has 11 students studying at the university level.

Student accomplishments have been many: professional video work in Guatemala and Spain; photography in Uganda; newspaper internships in the US; speaking engagements in Australia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua; and photo workshops in Granada, Medellin and Mexico DF. Their work has been exhibited in over 14 countries, won major prizes, and has appeared in prestigious media throughout the world. The students themselves have appeared on Guatemalan, Australian, Austrian, Japanese, Dutch, English, and German television, have published a book of their own work, and opened a design studio called Jakarama!.

For additional information on the FOTOKIDS exhibit in Portland, contact Child Aid or visit http://www.child-aid.org. For additional information on FOTOKIDS, go to the project website at http://www.fotokids.org. 

ABOUT CHILD AID - Child Aid helps the children of the largely indigenous, rural poor by partnering with grassroots organizations in Latin America. These organizations have the passion and drive but lack the financial and technical resources and experience in organization building that Child Aid provides. After helping a local group to develop the skills to sustain itself and grow, Child Aid moves on to assist somewhere else. In this way, we’re helping to create organizations that have a lasting and memorable impact.  We believe people not projects create lasting change and help build brighter futures for children born into poverty.