Arcadia Coffee Company will host the award-winning photography project Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project, for the fourth consecutive year during the month of August. The exhibit's display in Old Greenwich is in remembrance of the Project's founder, David Jiranek (1958-2003), an Old Greenwich resident who made a difference in the lives of the children who are survivors of the Rwandan genocide. The stunning photographs, all taken by children from the Imbabazi Orphanage in Rwanda, show their life today, as seen through the children's eyes - full of hope, promise and beauty. This exhibit is open to the public Monday through Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, from 7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Arcadia Coffee Company is located at 20 Arcadia Road, Old Greenwich, Conn. For more information, call 203-637-8766 or visit www.arcadiacoffee.com.
The photography exhibit Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project, has won numerous awards and has just come from a six-month exhibition at the highly acclaimed Holocaust Museum Houston. It has also been shown at such prestigious venues as The United Nations, the New York and Los Angeles premiers of the movie Hotel Rwanda, at the U.S. Senate Building in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. This year's exhibit at Arcadia Coffee Company feature several new images taken from recent photographic workshops in Rwanda. These photographs are not your typical landscapes or portraits – and they haven't been taken by professional photographers. What makes these photographs so special is that they have been taken by children - survivors of the Rwandan genocide - most who never saw a camera before this project started.
Through the Eyes of Children: The Rwanda Project is the culmination of seven years of photographic workshops for the children living at the Imbabazi Orphanage in Rwanda. A dedicated group of Americans travel to Rwanda and work with the children on photography skills; the exhibit illustrates the children's lives today, as seen through their own eyes. The Project was founded in 2000 by the late David Jiranek (1958-2003), of Old Greenwich, Conn., and is continued in David's memory by a dedicated group of friends and family. David Jiranek was a photographer, businessman and philanthropist who began the photographic workshop in 2000 after traveling to Rwanda, and by chance, meeting the children at the Imbabazi Orphanage. The children, most who had never seen a camera before, were intrigued by David's camera and photos. But Jiranek found he could not accurately capture the children's world in Rwanda. Inspired by the children's own perspective and experience, David gave the children disposable cameras to document their world - as seen out their window, on their way to school, and to capture their hopes, fears and dreams. The children in the workshops, ranging in age eight to 18, began photographing themselves and their community. The resulting photographs are nothing short of extraordinary (see www.RwandaProject.org to view the entire gallery of photographs). A photograph by then 8-year-old Jacqueline entitled "Gadi at the Market" won "First Prize - Portraiture" in the 2001 Camera Arts Magazine Photo Contest (in the adult category). In 2005, the children were given digital cameras for the first time and the resulting images are newly added to the exhibition (see the beauty of "Collecting Firewood" by Gasore). In addition to the world-wide exhibitions, the website www.RwandaProject.org was re-launched last fall with the new images and a book is in progress that will showcase the children's photographs and tell their life stories behind the lens.
Prints of the children's work are available for sale at Arcadia Coffee Company and on the website (www.RwandaProject.org), via tax-deductible donations to the organization, where the proceeds go towards the children's education and to support future photographic work. To learn more about The Rwanda Project, view the exhibition schedule, see examples of the children's work, make a donation or order photographs, visit www.rwandaproject.org. |
