Geneva Photo Exhibition

Geneva Photo Exhibition: AVSI Africa
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/106387564828.htm

Children race through a field, school bags thrown over their shoulders, for
a one-day escape from Kibera--their home and Nairobi's largest slum. As
they compete in tug-o-war and jump rope, enjoying a day of play and
abandon, their laughing faces are caught in still photos. Through the lens
the world can taste a piece of their joy, and later, a sense of their reality.

Francesco Fantini, an Italian photojournalist, traveled through Kenya,
Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to capture the lives of
people who face extreme poverty, civil war and HIV/AIDS.

Fantini, who has been widely recognized for his work to document the plight
of child laborers in Brazil, began collaborating on the project with AVSI
in 2002. The result, a collection of 65 images in black and white, is on
display from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9 at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva.

The exhibition, titled "AVSI Africa," attempts to put a face on the
dramatic reality that unfolds each day across the African continent--one
that encompasses moments of great struggle and suffering, but also moments
of great pride and joy. From a home for juvenile offenders in Kampala to
the scarred earth below Goma's volcano Nyiragongo, Fantini uses his camera
to communicate the stories of individuals and communities.

"AVSI Africa" is organized by the ambassadors of Italy and Uganda in
Geneva, and promoted by Sergei Ordzhanikidze, director general of the U.N.
office in Geneva. The show runs parallel to the 34th session of the
Committee on Rights of the Child, which opened in Geneva on Sept. 15. The
Committee will hold a three-week session to review child rights in several
targeted countries and to review an initial report of a state party under
the optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict,
which came into force in 2002.

The work of Fantini is a fitting accompaniment to the U.N. effort to
protect children's rights. His photographs feature children who have felt
the direct impact of war in eastern Congo, Rwanda and northern Uganda,
their rights to protection from violence, injury and abuse denied by armed
conflict.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child also gives children a right
to education and health care, and the right to play and enjoy life as a
child. Despite these guarantees, children across sub-Saharan Africa often
see their days governed by HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty. Fantini offers a
glimpse into the lives of these children too--a generation that might, with
the support of the global community, help usher in a day when the rights
granted to children can become a reality.

INFORMATION ON THE SHOW:

"AVSI Africa"

Sept. 24 to Oct. 9
Open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
E Building, 3rd floor (access through door 40)
Palais des Nations
Entrance: Pregny Gate
United Nations, Geneva
Switzerland

For further information contact: 0041.22.918.010

AVSI-East Africa
Plot no. 1119 Ggaba Road
P.O. Box 6785
Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256.41.501.604/5
E-mail: [email protected]