Uganda

The FotografiSenzaFrontiere (FSF - Photographers Without Borders) mission to Kalongo in the North of Uganda is an integral part of the three-year project Fondazioni4Africa 2008-2011, promoted by Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Cariparma, Cariplo and Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in collaboration with a number of Italian Non-Government Organizations such as Cesvi, Amref and Coopi. These three NGOs have entrusted FotografiSenzaFrontiere with the task of documenting the complex theme of the return of refugees of war to their villages of origin, through multimedia laboratories aimed at students from the Kalongo secondary school, in the district of Pader. The written accounts and stories that have been collected will constitute a starting point for the development of initiatives of information, awareness-raising and education, which have been promoted in Italy by Cesvi, Amref and Coopi since the second half of 2008.

Palestina

In the summer of 2004, ARCI set up a camp-school in Bethlehem with children between 10 and 15 years of age. In collaboration with FotografiSenzaFrontiere, photography courses were also held, and a media centre equipped with scanners and computers was set up at the Marie Doty Children’s Park. Through photography, the children of Bethlehem have climbed over the wall that surrounds them.

Saharawi

In 2002, the first autonomous FotografiSenzaFrontiere photo laboratory was created. The laboratory was set up at El Ajiun, a Saharawi refugee camp in the Algerian desert. Between the tents, among all the dust, a dark room was set up, a small prefabricated structure without windows. The Saharawi women who participated in the course print their own photographs and tell us their own stories.

Nicaragua

In 1997, Giorgio Palmera set up photographic laboratories with child labourers from different cities in Nicaragua. In 2004, in his last visit to the country, he returned to Somoto where one of his students, Saúl Palma Cruz, has continued to teach photography to child labourers in his city. Saúl received a scholarship from the European Institute of Design in Milan, and successfully finished his studies in June 2008 in Rome. Saúl Palma Cruz looks after the photographic laboratory in Somoto, Nicaragua.