Our office was buzzing this summer!
Earlier this year, two students visiting from Brazil to study photography at Parsons approached JHP about an internship. They learned of our organization and felt that our mission closely aligned with what they seek to do with their photography skills in their home countries—engage the community. Fernanda Verdi and Betina Schmitt sat down with the JHP staff and outlined a very special internship program.
The two photography students would serve as instructors and create a mini-photography program that would be held in our office and their participants would be two students from the Pace University OASIS program and one from Cooke Center Academy, all of whom had already completed one JHP program. Their decided focus was social justice and each of them, instructors included, would consider an issue and then work to capture photographs within their chosen theme.
Participants each created their own Blurb books to feature their work. Malcolm looked at poverty in the city while Nils investigated American culture in NYC. Michael used images to create an anti-bullying campaign poster and Betina and Fernanda created a book that highlighted the 2015 Pride parade and commissioned other visiting artists to contribute.
This small but dynamic group met twice a week for five weeks and split their time between discussing social justice issues, learning photography and walking the city to take photos. Though our two visitors have returned to Brazil to continue their studies, we are so grateful that they joined the JHP family this summer and contributed even more to the growth of our participants and to the valuable work that we do.
-A.S.W.