The whitehead detention camp has about 11,000 Vietnamese people and 40% are children. Most of them arrived here as babies or born in prison. inside this prison some call home, there are thousands of children who have never seen a dog, cow, horse or garden. Their school, their friends, their possible family, and their lives are all behind bars. surrounded by concrete, iron fences, and barbed wire is a child's life. … A life that may not ever be lived. HONG KONG 1995
This is a picture of a young boy by the name Kosovar. He is waiting with his family at Casa Regina Pacis, the refugee reception center in San Foca, Italy. This boy is waiting to be registered by the italian police. The violence provoked the flights of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Few lucky ones were could afford to pay to be smuggled by boat into Italy. Volunteers at the camp were often overwhelmed by the numbers.
SAN FOCA, ITALY 1998
It's sad to think that when I was in Italy this past summer, my biggest concern was what flavor of gelato I would try next.
--- The airport scene is stressful enough, with all the unhappy customers trying to book faster, more direct flights.
Imagine the hundreds and thousands of people desperately trying to fly.
And having a little more than just missing a work party riding on this flight.
The movie, "The Salt of the Earth" follows the life and work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, who has spent forty years documenting deprived societies in hidden corners of the world.
As a girl that grew up in a wealthy area full of teenagers begging for the newest iPhone, what I saw in this movie shocked me. When I think of the world we live in today I tend to think that we have it all figured out. Famine, governmental induced killings, and torture-like manual labor are things of the past right?
… I wish.
Watching this movie was an experience. A horrifying, enlightening humbling and all too emotional experience.
But I'm still telling you… go watch it.
Because I know that you are or know of more iPhone 4 complainers out there.
--- and we need to use all of our devices (including iPhone 4's) to spread refugee awareness.
These scared, and deprived people are grains of salt on this earth. Just like you. It's about time we notice them.
Sebastião Salgado travels the world documenting the
shocking lives of the powerless. He portrays, "a sample of the human
condition on the planet today.”
Many people don't even know the definition of the
word refugee. I'll take a moment to enlighten you. A refugee is,
"A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to
escape war, persecution, or natural disaster." Imagine this
sight "it felt like the whole world was covered with refugee
tents." Salgado saw this scene. Salgado has witnessed many
horrifying events from the government withholding food in Ethiopia
causing a mass famine, to dead bodies covering parts of Rwanda on the
journey thousands took towards the boarder. He also saw the struggles
of Brazilian miners and others people thrown into the inhuman world of
manual labor.
Imagine a world where everyone is dying so rapidly that this
occurs: "I saw a dad chatting with his friend and threw his son into
a pile of corpses then left and continued chatting as if nothing had
happened." The awful truth is that this is not an imagined worst case
senario, this is a reality that most of the world is blind to.
Now we're going to open our eyes and see, what the world is like for a refugee.
