I took these photos while documenting Compassion International’s Child Survival program, which is wonderful and effective outreach to marginalized young mothers and their children in Tanzania. This is how it works. Compassion Int. staff, along with community and church leaders, identify the most needy and form them into small groups. They meet at least once a week to receive encouragement, spiritual guidance, livelihood training, and enough nutrient-packed porridge to feed their baby for the week. The latter is actually prepared by the women themselves, by mixing a variety of beans, nuts, and flour and placing them in sacks to be transported to the local mill. By the next meeting, the porridge will have been milled and measured equally among the women. The allotment will provide a hearty meal for either a nursing mother, or if old enough, their baby as well.

The stories of these women were almost more than I could bear to hear. Like the first woman in these pictures. I found out after photographing her at church that only days before her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. Widowed with such a young child, she’s facing a long and difficult journey in a country not able to provide any form of assistance. Her and the baby desperately needs the mercy and love that Compassion International is providing.

Compassion does amazing work and is by far the most effective organization I’ve seen that breaks the cycle of poverty, one family at a time. No matter your religion, if you’re not doing something about eradicating poverty, God called and said you have to. Really.

Stepping down from the soap box right…. now.

At the age of 19, this woman (above) was widowed just a few days before I took this photo. She’s being helped through Compassion International’s Child Survival Program

Down the trail from Compassion’s Child Survival project site, a young Muslim girl retrieves water for her family before school.

More pictures uploaded here

Working “on-loan” to Compassion was really a wonderful experience on so many levels. First, they are an organization that simply does no better job at demonstrating mercy and love to those born into poverty. With over a million children sponsored, Compassion is one of the bigger groups that provides weekly bible programs as well as meal programs, medical and educational resources. And if a sponsored child achieves certain academic scores, they even have a chance for a full university scholarship. My assignment in Kenya was to document a few of their scholarship recipients (see some profiles below) as well as their Child Survival Program in Tanzania – will post that later. Their stories are truly inspiring and a credit to the hard work of Compassion’s staff and the sponsors that enable the ministry.

Once a sponsored child graduates from high school, they have the opportunity to apply for the Leadership Development Program, which provides a full four-year scholarship to any university. These are some of the LDP students I spent time with at the University of Nairobi.

I decided to just sit at the local water spring and make friends. After a while, it was the Maasai who asked me to photograph them — and I was honored to do so. One young man even invited me to his boma (hut) to meet his 165 year-old father. Yes, 165. So he tells me anyway, and I had him right down the number on paper to make sure there wasn’t a problem understanding his english.

Maasai boy in his boma

165 year old Maasai Father

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv4DgNIuEiM

I had pondered if I should just let the pictures stand alone to tell the story of my friend here. Allow me to add a few words for context. I have been saying hello to Ray for several years on my usual walk from our office to the mall. He’s almost always there, unless its raining or past dark. It takes him about 20 minutes to get from his house to his position on the elevated walkover that spans over the busiest highway in the country. Using his hands he catapults himself forward over the grimy sidewalk, managing about a foot at a time. He tries to avoid the spit, the urine trails, and countless other forms of filth that are soaked into the streets of Manila. He carries nothing with him for the days work but the rubber tire he has fashioned to cover his lower torso has a small fold where he can slide in the coins he receives. He doesn’t eat nor drink for the whole day, no doubt in part for obvious problems with finding a restroom that can accommodate him. Though I wish to suggest he could go into the nearby mall for water and use the toilet, I know (and Ray does too) the guard would never allow him past the front door.

Ray’s voice is timid and I struggle to understand him over the rumble of two train lines that intersect overhead, the eight lanes of cars and buses passing underneath, and the thousands of people that pass him each day. He is a man of few words who I imagine doesn’t have many lengthy conversations with people on the street. Nor do I gather he has many friends in the home he shares. Ray doesn’t know his parents and I speculate that his mom may have attempted to abort him and thus left him deformed — an unfortunate but common result of the underground abortion medicines that are often ineffective to do the job. When Ray was born without legs, he was quickly abandoned.

As I photographed him yesterday afternoon I noticed that a few would-be givers had shied away when they saw my camera. I quickly stopped shooting so as to not cause any missed opportunities, but I think there were a couple that I spooked away. I felt bad for that and quickly moved further away, while watching for a reaction of possible disappointment. There was none whatsoever. I realized that over the years of my brief conversations with him there was never a word of frustration, anger or any other mention of bitterness towards life. I wonder how a man like Ray could have such an attitude of quiet peace with the cards his was dealt. I have much more to learn from my friend and I suspect the world does too.

This images are obviously in great contrast to the wedding pictures that I take. It feels uncomfortable, doesn’t it? Well my point is create a certain uncomfortable juxtaposition here. How does it stir your heart?

The ramshackle shelter perched over the riverbank was home for an impoverished family of four. Not built to code, it was constructed with materials they scavenged in the area and by design isn’t meant to be a sturdy permanent structure. It was built on on land that could be reclaimed at anytime by the owner, government or slumlord. Because of this stressful uncertainty, it can be disassembled and rebuilt elsewhere within a day or two. So when the river swelled it was easily swept it away in seconds and this family who had been fighting to survive all their lives now faced their ultimate life and death challenge.

One does not need even an elementary education to see that the plight of the poor is due in large part because of top to bottom corruption of its leaders. In countries rich in resources, such as The Philippines, one can argue the only reason with which poverty exists is because of the greed and power hungry elite oppress the poor for their own benefit. They are very good at convincing the mostly uneducated poor they are for them during election cycles, but year after year poverty increases while the rich get richer. As the disparity increases, so too has the level of audaciousness of the politics. With a general election campaign on the horizon, politicians are all posturing to be seen as the biggest hero of those affected by the flood. In fact these are some of the same people who have spent years pilfering public money for their personal benefit. Money that should have been spent on job creation and safe public housing for the poor instead provides a wealthy lifestyle for even the lowest level government official, thus preventing this Filipino family from attaining any kind of chance to escape their condemned economic (and geographic) disadvantage.

Instead of fleeing their doomed situation, the family stayed out of fear that their few but precious belongings would be either stolen or lost in the storm. Now it was too late to escape as a mountain of water came from upstream with a brutal vengeance. The house was decimated in a brief moment with just enough time for the mother, father and their young son and daughter to escape. They were not however out of danger. The fierce current would not allow the father to coral his family together and though he and his wife so desperately tried, the could not hold onto their children. For a close knit family who had been surviving poverty all these years, this ultimate struggle of life and death would be now be fought individually. The children quickly disappeared but hope was not yet gone. The daughter waged a good fight and managed to cling to a tree limb. But her hair somehow became entangled in a branch and when the flood level rose even higher she eventually drowned. The boy, who having lived next to a river must have had some swimming skills, was found dead several kilometers away.

As the relief efforts are in full swing and the country begins to recover it is highly doubtful the ones responsible for so many deaths will be brought to justice. What may be worse however is they likely won’t suffer much anguish, guilt or shame over their uncontrollable greed. Worse still, they’ll probably find ways to skim off the rebuilding efforts in the weeks, months and years to come. For the sake of humanity, some questions must be asked to these culprits of corruption: can you live with yourself knowing your greed prevented the opportunity for thousands to have a chance to escape poverty and even death? In this writers limited Tagalog: kailan ba kayo makakaroon ng hiyat? (when will you develop a sense of shame?)

– Dan Johanson

Tim Lincecum

Aaron Rowland

Omar

Jonathan Sanchez

Dave Dravecky — Check out the book my brother Matt Johanson wrote, Giants – Where Have You Gone? Featuring players such as Dravecky, Jack Clark, Matt Williams and many more.

In his follow-up book, Johanson wrote “Game of My Life: Memorable Stories of Giants Baseball”