Uncle Craig's Children

The photos are striking, capturing vignettes of ordinary people, ordinary lives. The photographers, though, are by no means ordinary. They are all children who have somehow or the other been affected by the scepter of HIV-AIDS, and they are able to document their own

lives which have been turned upside down by the disease and get some closure. Their mentor is American photographer Craig Bender, known to the children as ‘Uncle Craig’, and for whom this empowerment of the kids has become a personal mission.

With the growing HIV pandemic in India, every day lives are being affected, and many children, like 16 year old K.Revati, have parents who are HIV positive or have lost siblings to the disease. Bender, who lives in Amsterdam, had been assigned by the Abbot Fund to visit far-flung countries and document the plight of orphans and vulnerable children who were being assisted by its Step Forward program. “I really wanted to do something from my point of view and as a photographer, this was the best thing I could think of,” he says of the photography project. “Give the children the ability to tell their own stories as opposed to those coming from a westerner- the very nature of me coming into their environment changes their environment.”

The Picturing Hope program is in five countries including India, where the pilot project is in Vijayawada in collaboration with a local NGO. . The photography program is self-sustaining as these children are trained in peer education and will go on to teach others. Young Revati, for instance, has taken images of the friends of the brother she lost, and feels a connection to him when she does that.

Exhibitions of the project, titled Picturing Hope have been held in Bangkok during World AIDS Day and also at the UN and Asia Society. Many more are planned to give these kids moral support and give AIDS in India a human face. Says Bender, “The children are taking ownership for that responsibility and it’s an opportunity for them to step up in their community and talk about their lives, and break down the layers of stigma that exist with regard to HIV AIDS.”