Proposal

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat . . . ” Mother Teresa

“It’s said that there are 153 million orphans in the world. According to UNICEF, if orphans were a country of their own, the population would rank 9th in the world.”

Consequences caused due to the conditions such children are living in have had serious impacts on their rights and development. Orphan children are usually alone in an adult world. They experience serious violations of the most basic natural human rights such as nutrition, shelter, education, and healthcare. Orphanages in poorer countries usually do not have access to medical treatment. Some orphans are abused through dangerous labor and sexual abuse.

Elisabeth Blanchet, the British Photographer of the project called Ceausescu’s Orphans, 25 years on has been my main influence for this project. She took many portraits of children in the 1990s in Romanian orphanages mostly because she “‘came to care about them”. About 25 years later she decided to photograph them another time as adults. Her project created a very strong reaction among the young generation and “drew attention to Ceaușescu’s mania about raising the birth rate”.

I also was impacted by another British photographer, and a member of Magnum Photos since 1979, Christopher Steele-Perkins. His photos of children in an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan are “a social document” that he “connects with the subjects”.

All people worldwide can be part of a solution to maintain the proper balance of children by following the existing guidelines for international protection and cooperation of children by many organizations. I have chosen to make a documented story of children in an orphanage in an undeveloped Country. I will travel to Albania by myself and document the lives of children, and also a series of portraits at Diana Orphanage.

“No, I don’t think you’re ever an objective observer. By making a frame you’re being selective, then you edit the pictures you want to be published and you’re being selective again.” Mary Ellen Mark

The proposed plan will significantly demonstrate the lives of children in Diana Orphanage to people outside who are not happy with their lives in order to make them appreciate what I believe truly matters in life: having family and being loved by them. I would like to demonstrate aspects of the lives of children who are forced to live without family and without enough food and clothes to thrive throughout their social, physical and emotional development.

I will be going to Albania and been photographing full-time for 10 days taking photographs of the area of the orphanage, portraits of children, the activities they are spending their time doing. The photographs will range from a dark undertone such as their health condition, challenges they are undertaking and feeling of loneliness and anger to a happy and colorful one such as their communication, play, personal sacrifice, love, and friendship. Viewers might also interpret the images as harsh, unhappy, unfair, innocent or it might change the viewer’s preconceived ideas about orphanages.