Photojournalism about Rwanda: The private life of Ancille Mukabisangwa

After my first up-close and personal, direct encounter with photojournalism just a few weeks ago meeting Marcus Bleasdale I have developed a strong admiration for, perhaps even fascination with, the field. It is something about moral neutrality and unopiniated documentation of the truth of mankind’s failures, successes, triumphs, atrocities that I find so intriguing.

Today I bumped into photographer/photojournalist Simon Sticker. He was travelling to Kenya for a film project and had some time over which he decided to spend in Rwanda. Once there one thing led to another and he started the project With Our Own Eyes, where Rwandan students would use the internet and social media to tell stories from their own point of view about life in Rwanda.

He also got involved with a Rwandan student group that fights prostitution and developed a photo-essay project.

[The project] was a multimedia story about prostitution in Rwanda. This focussed on the Stop Prostitution Around Campus (SPAC) project which is run by the Medical Students Association of Rwanda (MEDSAR). It gives ex-prostitutes the chance to get out of prostitution and make a living in other ways. The whole piece will be made up of four multimedia films, covering two woman and their lives, the project and some background information about prostitution. The first one about Ancille is also already online and is embedded below.