WACC photo competition results announced

Winner

Submitted by Leslie Knott.

(A journalist in Maimana, Afghanistan conducts an interview for her program on agriculture on Radio Quyaash, an independent women-managed radio station.)

Leslie Knott , originally from Vancouver, Canada, is currently working in Afghanistan as a photographer, and documentary film maker.

She spent two years living in Maimana, a village in Northern Afghanistan where this winning photo was taken, setting up a radio station for women. The woman in the photograph, Rona Sherzai, is the manager of the women run radio station.

Leslie has just completed her Masters Degree in International Development and Communication in England. She trained in photojournalism and broadcast journalism in Vancouver. Read more...

Commendations

Submitted by Mohamed Abdulla Shafeeg

(Mariya, a Maldives woman spearheading reform and pushing for women’s rights)

Mohamed is a professional photographer based in Maldives.
His photos are published in a weekly local magazine, brochures and some tourism advertising publications.

Submitted by Boaz Rottem

(The old ladies were amazed by the camera! The photo was taken at the Loike area where the Padaung Tribe lives. Some of the Padaung escaped to Thailand where they live today.)

Born in the USA, Boaz grew up in Israel and the USA. After falling in love with travel whilst working as an irrigation consultant, he is now a professional photographer who documents the lives & culture of people in Asia, Africa and beyond.

Boaz says " My camera is the medium I use to capture my surroundings and to interact with it. It helps me cross the borders of language, time, space and political boundaries".

Submitted by Paul Jeffrey

(Free trade agreements have been resisted by many church leaders and activists in the global South. Here a group of protestors speaks out against CAFTA during a demonstration in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.)

Paul is a United Methodist missionary from the United States who writes for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women, and covers disasters for Action by Churches Together (ACT), the Geneva-based international alliance of churches responding to emergencies. He lived in Central America for two decades, and recently moved to the U.S. state of Oregon. He is both a writer and a photographer, and has filed stories from more than 50 countries around the world.

Submitted by María Florencia Guedes (Flora G)

(The stencil shows the way women’s groups raise awareness about problems that affect them: violence, sexual and reproductive rights amongst others. In this photo the stencil says: “When a woman says no, it means no”. Taken during a demonstration of women’s movements in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8 March 2008.)

Flora G is a social communicator who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has worked in development projects with several organizations such as Caritas, UNICEF and other local ones, since she was a student at Buenos Aires University.

“Since my childhood, I have found in photography a way to complement my interests in promoting human rights and raising awareness on citizenship issues”, says Maria.

Submitted by Caroline Martin (Sirensongs)

(Tibet Uprising Day: About a 1000 people, including elderly Tibetans and local Indian school children, braved the cold rain and winds to commemorate March 10, Tibet Uprising Day. This March 10 2007 was notable for being the first at which several members of Parliament and other Indian politicians came to address the crowd.)

Sirensongs moved to south India in 2002 to complete her six years' study of Bharatanatyam, the classical Indian temple dance. She blames a severe childhood National Geographic addiction for both her degree in Cultural Anthropology, and for the past six years, in which she has traveled, photographed, researched and written about the spiritual culture of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, in various news media and in her photoblog, Feringhee: the India Diaries.

In 2006, Sirensongs attended the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra ceremony in Andhra Pradesh, India and began what is now two years of pilgrimage, photography and participation among the Buddhist communities of India and Nepal.