www.theolympian.com: Photographer works for empowerment

Photographer works for empowerment

Diane Huber

Original post: http://www.theolympian.com/laceytoday/story/406793.html

Rebekah-mae Bruns spent a year in Iraq as an Army photographer. She returned shaken and consumed with stopping war.

“When I came home, the devastation became so overwhelming that I became almost obsessive about preventing it,” she said from her Lacey residence.

Bruns, 36, saw a connection between war and a lack of education — particularly female education.

She enrolled in Saint Martin’s University’s Master of Education program. Then she took her photography background to a village in southern Tanzania and spent three months teaching 14 teenage girls photography and video skills.

The project — called The Rosetta Project — is part of her master’s thesis.

She also hopes it’s one small step toward making the world a more peaceful place.

From Iraq to Africa

Bruns joined the Army at age 20 and has 15 years of military service.

She served in the Sinai Peninsula in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003 and spent a year from 2004 to 2005 in Baghdad and Fallujah, Iraq.

When she returned, she didn’t want to pick up her camera, because she associated it with her time in Iraq.

At the same time, she felt that pull to create something meaningful from her experience.

“When you go through traumatic events, you can choose one of two options: You can become bitter and angry and resentful, or you can take those experiences and learn from them and apply them to something positive,” she said.

Her research led her to sub-Saharan Africa.

The region has among the lowest education rates for women and the highest rates of war, she said.

Less than 20 percent of students continue to secondary school, according to UNICEF, an organization within the United Nations that advocates for children’s rights worldwide.

The cost for one student to attend secondary school for a year is about $200, Bruns said.

About this time, a Tanzanian nun at Saint Martin’s invited Bruns to teach in a secondary school for girls ages 12 to 22.

So Bruns set about fundraising for her trip, collecting donations from Lacey Rotary and several local churches. People donated cameras, laptops and other equipment for the project.

Bruns and her brother, a Chicago filmmaker, traveled to the school in Chipole, a mountainous region scattered with villages of huts made from grass and mud.

And Bruns picked up the camera for the first time since Iraq.

“It was a big part of the healing process for me,” she said.

First exposure

Bruns created a lesson plan that included an introduction to cameras, and assignments that would teach the technical and artistic aspects of photography.

“None of them had ever touched a video camera in their life. They didn’t even know what a video camera was. We had to teach them from the ground up,” she said.

But they caught on quickly.

“It was so cool to see their faces light up,” she said.

For the final project, students were to portray barriers and solutions to girls’ education. The girls discussed several barriers, including:

Though the United Nations pays for all students to attend primary school through age 13, many families can’t afford books, supplies, uniforms and school fees. Families with limited income will educate their sons rather than their daughters. If a mother dies of illness, it is the daughter’s duty to quit school and care for the family.

AIDS, malaria and other endemic diseases are so common that many children become orphans and live on the streets, following the same patterns of prostitution and drugs as their parents.

The main tribal belief is that women don’t need an education because they will get married and raise the children.

The girls also offered solutions, including that the government’s first priority should be to educate all street children. The girls also suggested seminars be held in villages to educate women about HIV/AIDS, pregnancy and the importance of education.

Bruns said she was struck by the girls’ intelligent discussions of the issue and their understanding of government.

“They are brilliant. I was blown away,” she said.

Empowerment

Her thesis advisor, Dr. Katia Shkurkin believes the project will make a difference.

“I most certainly think that the project will benefit the girls at the school in Chipole, as well as the equipment … will benefit the school as a whole,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Now that she is back, Bruns will finish her thesis. Her brother is producing a documentary of their visit, “The Origins of Speech,” which will be posted on The Rosetta Project’s Web site.

Bruns left the video and camera equipment with the school so students can continue to use photography to effect change.

“I’m hoping they’ll have a sense of empowerment and realize they do have a say in their destiny, that they have a voice and it can be heard,” Bruns said.