The mainbuilding of the university of Butare is huge, white with a beautiful green inner quard. It is one of the places what show the reasons behind the project we started earlier this year, called ‚With our own eyes’. Rwanda has been for a long time in the collective mind of most people outside Africa a country tortured by the brutal genocide what killed more than 800.000 people in 100 days and maybe not much less in the after conflict clashes in nearby Congo. When you ask people what they think of Rwanda, most will come up with words like genocide, war and thoughts about a devasted country. The present, 15 years after, looks different and Rwanda has become one of the most emerging countrys in the region.
Earlier this year i came to Rwanda for the first time with the same brutal pictures in my mind. How is life in a country what has gone through all that? How is life today? It totally changed my perspective and even when the genocide is a topic omnipresent in the private lifes, the normal life seems not too much being effected by it. At the same time the Rwandans now have the chance to show their daily life, their conflicts and lovely moment with pictures. More or less everyone has a cellphone and many have cameras in their cellphones or even small digital cameras. Together with the possibilities of the internet, what is better than ever to connect with people and show what you are up to through all the social media plattforms, there is a great chance that the people of Rwanda could share their thoughts, ideas and life with other people around the world. For free, without any extra money or fancy equipment.
The classroom for the first day of the workshop reminds me of my old classroom i had my physics classes in school in. And i’m quite excited to start with the workshop. The students who attend are studying on pretty diverse topics here at the university. From biologie to cityplanning to IT to journalism. My hope is that through that the ideas of what they wanna tell is as diverse as their interests.
We start the first morning with some classic teaching about photography itself. Not based on the equipment, but focused on what you photograph and what makes a picture more interesting. The point of view, wideangle, close-up, the light, the moment. All the basic stuff, i learned and still improve about in my photographic life. The students take that input and try all the theoretical stuff i teach them out in exercises. It’s great to see that same excitment in their eyes as i had when i grabed a camera for the first time to photograph and not just flick some pictures.
The lunchbreak in the nearby cantina is short. To much to try out and still there is the part about storytelling with pictures left. Coming from the picture itself, how do you tell stories with it? How do you arrange objects to tell the story? How do we look at pictures? What is a photoessay? All those questions seem sometimes to be a bit abstract, but also quite interesting to the students. And it also the key to the last part of our todays workshop day - the brainstorming for ideas for stories. After that the students will head out to shoot for three days in small groups of two or three photoessays of the stories.
Maybe it was a bit unclear, what is possible in three days and what is possible with pictures when you have never done that before. At least, after the brainstorming, i’m facing stories bigger and more difficult to cover than everything i thought about. Infant mortality for instance, a great topic, but how to photograph without a clear vision. Health in Rwanda. Quite the same. For the next hour we discuss about the different ideas and try to bring them down on a possible level. I don’t know what i expected, but at least less serious stories. At the end they head out to cover topics like poverty, the plans of the goverment to rebuild more or less whole Butare ort he streetkids.
For the next three days the students are out, photographing, gaining information about their topics, all to put together a photoessy of ten to twelve pictures at the end. We meet in the evenings for discussing what they have done so far, what might be missing and how to maybe inprove on the pictures. And the interest in the feedback is huge and some seem to get more and more in their stories. Thoughts of helping the poor family one of the groups visits over the day rise, ideas what aspects might also be intersting for the story. And even when i’m a bit sceptical sometimes if i don’t want a bit too much, something what might not be possible after one day of workshop, they show me something different.
The last day of the workshop starts with a little delay. The projector is at a conference and only available from 5 pm. An hour running around and we have another one. One of the great things in Rwanda is that there is always a way. We had that in the preparation sometimes and even when we back home in Europe where getting nervous, at the end our local coordinator Chris arranged everything, most of the time with no costs. Thanks for that again, mate!
In the meanwhile the students started with putting together their stories. Choosing the pictures and ordering them, making descriptions. All that takes time and as some used the possibilities of digital photography quite intensively, they had sometimes more than 200 pictures to choose from. The lunch break has to get prosponed a couple of times, but at the end all groups have their essays ready to present.
But before the final presentation in the afternoon we come together for on last hour to talk about social media and how to use it. An overview on the different plattforms, the possibilities and how to use the project website are the topics, following the thought that where is the need for great stories and pictures, if no one sees them.
At three, with a couple of more spectators, we start with the final presentation of the essays. I’m quite happy, how deep soem groups dived in the stories and their encouraging talking about the pictures show that. The group covering a story about a poor family won the first price at the end, spending three intensive days with the family, seeing the first moments of the mother coming home from the hospital with her newborn child, photographing the different aspects of their life in the small hut.
We finished the workshop with seven photoessays at the end, covering different stories from poverty to leasure time at campus. All the stories can be seen on the project website, so don’t hesitate to dive into some stories from todays Rwanda.
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