Resilience
More than a million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, according to Columbia University's School of Public Health. The epidemic has left these children vulnerable; those who have lost both parents are often left without shelter and other basic necessities. The country’s fifty-plus orphanages care for just a fraction of these children, providing housing, food and clothing to about 3,000 of them.
One of these orphanages, Hands of Mercy, located in northern Tanzania near Lake Victoria, partnered with Kids Worldwide, an outreach organization that helps connect volunteers with orphanages and other children’s projects. Hands of Mercy was serving around 35 children in 2008, when the photographs for this exhibition were taken in conjunction with a volunteer project to teach photography lessons to some of the orphans. The children at Hands of Mercy, although faced with the loss of their parents, showed fierce resiliency, pushing through their lives, as curious and wide-eyed as the next eager child.
