Amy writes “While traveling throughout Nicaragua, and making stops at Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas projects, it was great fun to spend time with the children and leave them with a photo of themselves. All the participants loved practicing photo diplomacy through Dog Meets World! Perhaps the most fun was watching the kids, their expressions, excitement and anticipation as the photo was printed right before their eyes. I’m fairly certain they had never seen anything like it, and were thrilled to walk away with a photo in hand. Also, we stopped at a center for individual special needs and made photos which they placed on their desks. We took and printed over 100 photos during our short time there.”

Tom Neuhauser attended the Learning Center Trek with Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners last summer. Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas, Inc. is a not-for-profit, non-political organization working to enhance the quality of life in both Wisconsin and Nicaragua through people-to-people programs promoting cultural awareness and sustainable community development.

Tom visited Wisconsin’s Partner Country (Nicaragua) with team that taught workshops at the Learning Centers, or in Tom’s case – took and printed photos for Dog Meets World, which was very, very well received. What a great collaborations for people-to-people interactions.

Tom recounts: The children were very excited to have a picture of themselves to bring home and share with friends and family. They waited patiently in a long line to have their picture taken and were mesmerized watching the photo actually print on the portable printer. I enjoyed taking part in this project, it was a wonderful experience.

Ariane along with her husband Denis run Amman Imman “Water is Hope”. They have enthusiastically added photo diplomacy through Dog Meets Word to their projects. See photos of the printer in action as the children await the first photographs that they have ever owned of themselves.

A drought and the violence in Libya has further stressed this subsistence community. Yet in their latest newsletter they write they look forward to their return to Niger to “be welcomed by our dear friends and the smiling, laughing faces of the children we’ve grown to know and love in our Azawak communities. It will be refreshing to sip tea and share stories with our friends, eat fresh vegetables that they’ve been able to grow thanks to the borehole water and listen to songs the children have learned since they’ve begun attending the school that has opened now that water has become available.”

We look forward to more photos of the beautiful children of this remote region.

Barbara writes:

It was my 2nd journey to Jamaica as a DMW phodographer. Like last year the poor in the villages were very excited about the printing project. This year I did Dog Meets World at the site of my school on construction day, which has been a 3 year project in the works. Funding was completed a few weeks before my annual trip (my 8th) and Food For the Poor surprised me with the news when we arrived on the site that we were building my school this trip! Day 1, I met the children who were attending summer school (6 of them ages 2-6) and the picture taking began, but I did not have Max (Foto is called Max by the children in this project!) with me. We built the entire school that day! On Day 2 we returned to paint the school-yellow-the color of all my Jamaican projects.

On Day 2, I arrived with Max (Foto the dog) and the printer. We took individual school pictures of each student to print and take home. We took the class picture which the principal and teacher received copies of for the school office. The nicely dressed lady in the photo arrived at the school site and asked for me. She said she had been told we were taking pictures and she had never had her picture taken. She had dressed up for the event and was very excited. As she was walking to work, we only had time to snap the picture and I printed it up later, with the help of the kids to be given to her. The children and principal were fascinated with the printer and the kids enjoyed pushing the buttons. As the picture is printed in a series of colors the children called out the colors as it printed, thus it became a learning project. The children who attend this school all live in shacks with no electricity, bathroom or kitchen. It is an extremely poor community.

While in St. Lucia, Dog Meets World founder Carolyn Lane introduced photo diplomacy to Peace Corps Volunteer Lisa Kuk (posing with Foto, above left). Lisa is serving with her husband Thom in this southern village in St. Lucia that was the hardest hit by the hurricane of 2010. We “practiced” with two local school children who were thrilled to watch the printing process of their own photo. The Dog Meets World organization donated a printer and supplies so that Lisa may photograph many of the children and families in the area.

My name is Manar Sarie, I’m a master student at the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies in Israel studying low tech green technologies in the West Bank- Palestine. This summer I had a great opportunity to be part of a group called New Story Leadership for the Middle East, bring together young professional Israelis and Palestinians who are willing to talk and take action for peace.

During the summer in Washington, DC I interned at the World Bank and spoke in different embassies about my story as an Arab Israeli. Moreover, I heard about fascinating projects such as Dog Meets World- Photo Diplomacy. The first thing that came to my mind was flashes of kids who jumped and ran to me when I was taking photos in their village, and I never thought that actually the pictures I took for them can be the first picture they every had in their life. I am excited to start the project at home. There is almost nothing about photo diplomacy in the entire Middle East and I want to introduce it!!

Thank you Dog Meets World for your support and for opening the door to me to this world.

Michael is a world-class, professional track and field athlete with a heart for guiding young lives and a passion for community activism. In 2002 he founded The Michael Walton Foundation to provide positive outlets and opportunities for self development for underserved youth in grades 6th – 12th in the Greater Washington DC area. While traveling with youth from the MWF in Brazil he added Dog Meets World to give back to youth in Brasilia. Photos were taken at a program called Transforme in Brazil, a youth drug rehabilitation center. He said

I got the feeling that many of the youth that recieved photos hadn’t had that opportunity often. Collaborating with DMW made me feel as if we were leaving behind a special memory in the lives of these youth.. that it was a ray of light that they can look back upon as they go through their day to day challenges with rehabilitation. The Michael Walton Foundation will certainly use DMW on future trips.

!

Phodographer to be Marielle Briant in Guatemala: Punto de Palma '11 (left) and Zunil '09 (right)

I had never been to a developing country on my own before I traveled to Guatemala with friends over spring break. We had the opportunity to see most of Guatemala’s East coast, from Antigua all the way up north to the Mayan Ruins in Tikal, Petén.

We observed the poverty up close, although we always had a nice place to come back to at the end of the day, whether it was a family home or a decent hotel. Around the Lake Izabal we discovered what was left of the Indigenous Mayan civilization in a village called Aktenamith, which means “pueblo nuevo” in an ancient Mayan language. I left this town with the feeling that I was one step closer to understanding how these people lived.

In Punto de Palma, my friend Verena led us to the village behind her summer beach home where we interacted with schoolchildren, teachers and residents of the area. We approached the home of Verena’s household handyman and caregiver and saw a mother of 16 years of age holding her child in her arms (see photo on left). My friends and I started taking pictures of her and her family. Both my girlfriends posed with the baby while I took a picture or two, and that’s when I started to feel a little upset.

The family did not see the harm in our picture taking, and this intrigued me. Why was I feeling unsettled but not them? How could they not be bothered by my intrusive behavior in taking pictures of their family and leaving without sharing the photographs? I felt like I had violated their privacy and stolen a part of them that I did not deserve.

I started thinking about everything that I had learned up until then, mostly in school, about cultural relativism: about how everything is relative within a context and to the people concerned. The conclusion for me at the time was that these people were poor but most likely happy because they did not know anything different, or had not experienced it. What I hadn’t realized then but understand fully now was that my perspective was ethnocentric and that I was unknowingly judging them. What had originally intrigued me and left me perplexed when I took the picture of the mother with her child was the fact that she was not judging me.

I started to wonder what they would have thought if they had judged me? I was so quick to judge their lives that I hadn’t realized that by the simple, oblivious act of photographing their family, I was giving them plenty of good reasons for them to look down on how I lived my own life. This is why when I got back to New York and found out about Dog Meets World the whole concept of photo diplomacy clicked for me.

I realize today that photo diplomacy is not only about giving people a photo of themselves, it’s about creating awareness of each other and realizing how much our judgment gets in the way of getting to know other people that are different from us. I intend to practice Take & Give photography and no longer just TAKE someone’s photo for my own amusement and benefit but print it up on the spot and share. Photo diplomacy is a two way street and it’s all about sharing the experience captured in the photograph. The picture on the right was taken by phoDOGrapher Patti Hughes also in Guatemala and show the delighted mothers looking at the new photos of their children.

- Marielle Briant, DMW Outreach & Communications Intern

A young boy from a township near Cape Town is highlighted today in honor of Nelson Mandela’s 93rd Birthday….we recognize and honor that to truly “see” and acknowledge each other is a simple act of kindness. Photo Diplomacy as practiced through Dog Meets World is a simple act of kindness for the world. A photo says I see you, you matter and we are much alike. It is tangible joy and a seed of peace. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Celebrate “Mandela Day” by showing kindness and compassion to all.

The Dalai Lama spoke on the grounds of the US Capitol in Washington, DC on Saturday, July 9th. The photo from Tibet by Patrick Firouzian is posted here in honor of the Dalia Lama’s “Talk on World Peace” which was free and opened to everyone. He indicated that he does not prepare remarks rather speaks as if talking individually to the thousands on the lawn. He spoke about compassion and inner peace. Dog Meets World believes that sharing personal photographs by practicing photo diplomacy with those in need is a small act of compassion. As Mother Teresa said “peace begins with a smile“.