#iwmffellows

I met these warm and inspiring women in a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Juba. All four are working as health clinic trainees – they see it not just as a career, but as a form of health-activism. They told me about their efforts in finding ways, however small and local, to make a dent in tackling soaring rates of child pregnancies, sexual abuses, domestic violence and other problems within their communities. #GirlPower.

Rwanda’s soil is rich, so indeed the land is green. I have never worked on a story on agriculture or climate change before so visiting farms between the Kigali swamps and the Eastern province really gave me an intimate portrait of how integral the earth is connected to survival. From coffee to banana plantations, the land is responsible for the nation’s economic growth, empowering communities and feeding its people. 

It is the one reason why in a place like this, climate change holds immense significance for both security and subsistence. It has been an interesting journey putting faces to the effects of consistent torrential rainfall and drought, understanding that the human consequences go beyond trendy buzzwords.

One thing I love about being a journalist are the many opportunities it offers for learning, and working on these stories has been one to savour.

Love always

Wana

Jane Hahn is an amazingly talented freelance photographer who has been based in West Africa for eleven years. 

Looking through her portfolio is a journey – her portraits of the region are truly piercing, often both intimate and haunting. After learning that like me, she got a late start in journalism (we both started at 29 after pursuing other careers), I wanted to better understand what drove Jane to throw herself into this under-reported region so consciously and what has kept her there for the past decade…. 

Why did you choose to pursue a career in photojournalism in West Africa? 

I was drawn to West Africa because of its culture, diversity and resilience. Through early travels my eyes were opened to the incomplete narrative that was dominant in the West at the time. I wanted to learn more about the complexities of such a vast and misunderstood continent and its relation to the global community. 

Focusing on West Africa has not only helped me learn about the many individual countries that make up the region, but also their relation to each other culturally, religiously, economically, and politically, which helps when piecing together a larger narrative. The challenge of telling stories in a region largely ignored by the international media continues to be a difficult, but rewarding, path. 

This is not my first time to get fake-kidnapped as I already did hostile environment training last year. It's still a shock, being reminded that this is one of the perils of the job. What do you really do in this kind of situation? On both scenarios that I've been in, I always try to remove the blindfold. I wanted to see, commit things in memory as I distract myself from the cramps. I remind myself that this is just drill and wait for someone to shout the safe word "Obama!".

César Sánchez is one of the only young faces among dozens of producers selling their produce in the farmer’s market in Santa Tecla, on the outskirts of El Salvador’s capital city. 

I’m reporting a story on the participation — or lack of participation — of youth in agriculture in El Salvador, so the young man catches my eye. 

Standing over a spread of fresh fruits and vegetables, the 26-year-old explains that back in his community, located over 50 km west of San Salvador, there is also “little interest” among youth in producing food. 

Most people his age flock from the countryside in search of jobs, he says, leaving few to carry the agricultural torch. 

It’s a familiar story for many agricultural areas in the north and south alike, and one I’ve already heard from other rural communities in El Salvador. I ask the young producer what it would take to convince his peers to bet on farming. 

“We have to make known the importance of agriculture for people and for the country and also support and incentivize youth with tools and knowledge,” he says over the hum of the vendors hawking their wares and customers filling their shopping bags.  

Sánchez, who produces in a cooperative with about 30 other producers organized in the Izalco Cooperative Association of Agricultural Production in the department of Sonsonate, believes that more creative thinking and development in rural areas could disrupt the trend in his generation.

“In agriculture, there’s a big lag. There’s little innovation,” he says. “In knowledge, there’s also a lag. There’s no progress in new forms of producing.”

“We are also falling into monocultures — only producing [sugar] cane or coffee or cacao — and few are interested in diversifying their farms,” he adds. "Producing only one thing creates dependency.“

He’s not the first person to tell me that a shift to organic agriculture is key to the future of agriculture in a country set to be hard hit by global warming.

At an organic agriculture training center in Suchitoto, 50 km north east of the capital city, Augustin Durán, a 49-year-older farmer who fought with the rebel army during the country’s 12-year civil war, preaches that organic production is the only solution in the face of climate change. 

“What we are trying to do is reclaim ancestral culture, knowledge and practices,” he says. 

But the process isn’t easy, and Durán says El Salvador shouldn’t be overly optimistic nor pessimistic about the future of agriculture. 

“In this country it is difficult to create laws that support agriculture and incentivize youth,” he says.

Many producers, young and old, tell me that the government could do much more to support farmers, such as offering subsidies, ensuring land access, and improving access to markets. 

But back at the Santa Tecla market, Sánchez also makes clear that youth who do choose to produce food for El Salvador aren’t going to wait for solutions to be handed to them. Instead, some like him are thinking about how to guarantee the future of agriculture, even in small ways.  

“We are trying to save as many seeds as we can and safeguard them for the new generations,” he says. “We have to value the resources we have.”

Meet the Fellow: Heather Gies Heather Gies, soft-spoken and graceful, certainly knows how to throw a punch.  She is definitely sweet and insightful, but what resonated with me during our hostile environment training in Mexico was that Heather simply kicks ass. We’ve all watched in awe as she punched and kicked her way through the self-defense class. 

I’ve heard stories about Heather reporting on the ground while bullets reverberate during the electoral crisis in Honduras last year. When I asked her what made her pursue Journalism, she told me that the spark happened while she was doing her master’s thesis about the campesino leaders in Honduras in 2013:

“As part of my research, I interviewed several campesino leaders involved in a very intense land conflict who were facing an extremely grave human rights situation… I felt inspired to do journalism to be able to tell those kinds of stories that I was passionate about and that I think urgently need to be told.”

The fellowship was full of equally strong and intelligent journalists but we’ve all come to admire Heather’s focus and hard work. She’s always up before everyone else, off to interviews and meetings. Her deep understanding and concern for the stories she’s reporting on simply doesn’t match her modesty and for that, I respect her deeply. 

“I like to think that I'm writing about issues that do matter in the world and maybe I'm informing somebody in some way for them be able to use that information to try to make a change in the world.”

Amigas del camino…

 La fotografía suele ser un camino, a veces, bastante solitario. Viajas mucho, los amigos de casa ya no saben cuando estás o no estás y tu vida lentamente se va formando en el camino. Los amigos están repartidos por todo el mundo y viajar se vuelve una manera hermosa de reencuentros y despedidas. Pocas veces se dan las instancias donde un equipo funcione a la perfección. Así que cuando se juntan 4 mujeres fotógrafas, 2 mujeres organizadoras, 1 jefe de seguridad y 3 fixers que funcionan como un reloj Suizo es motivo de celebrar!  Compartir la misma pasión, las ganas de aprender, de crecer, de ser un aporte y de contar historias desde el corazón es lo que nos une a estas 4 mujeres de diferentes partes del mundo. Fue realmente inspirador ver como cada una trabajaba sin parar, pasando noches en vela y dándolo todo por sacar adelante una historia y luego llegar cada noche después de un largo día de trabajo y que todas estuvieran ahí para escucharte, para motivarte, para darte un consejo. Llegue al equipo con 1 amiga y me fui con un montón de amigos hermosos que llevaré siempre en mi corazón! Gracias a todos por su apoyo incondicional, por su fuerza, por su pasión, por sus ganas de contar historias y por haber sido el mejor apoyo! Fue un verdadero placer y un orgullo haber compartido y aprendido de cada una de estas 3 mujeres y badass women photographers! Gracias IWMF por el amor, el apoyo, el trabajo incondicional y por la increíble oportunidad que nos entregan para seguir contando historias desde los ojos de las mujeres!