Children’s Visions of Ho Chi Minh City Streets

Street Vision began in April 1998. Today two years later, Street Vision has trained 32 children in basic photographic theory with another 20 children now enrolled in a course in Ho Chi Minh City. To date nine students from the course have been given scholarships to continue studying photography in greater depth and a number of the first students earn part of their living through photography.

The children aged 14 to 20, who took part in the first phase of the project (April to September 1998) came from four centers for homeless children in the city. Through a series of afternoon workshops, the group of twenty young people set about a series of projects documenting their lives and the lives of other street and working children. Initially learning with point and shoot cameras, they later moved on, learning to use single lens reflex cameras through which they were able to have more creative control of their work. A number of children from the first course now instruct and help new students in the beginner

courses, the most recent of which opened in April 2000, working with both children from street shelters and children living on the streets. PhotoVoice is currently publishing a photographic book on the Street Vision Project. This book will display 80 -100 images taken by Street Vision students in Vietnam and will be loosely based around the guidelines of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. The project will be placed in the historical context of Vietnam. PhotoVoice is currently seeking sponsorship and support for this publication.

Contacts: Anna Blackman anna@photovoice.org, Marjorie Victor streetvisionusa@hotmail.com Tel: 617-868-1516 or visit: http://www.photovoice.org Photographs from the Street Vision project, in addition to those on this page, can be found throughout this and future issues of Interchange.