The December 2015 issue of National Geographic features “Showing Haiti on Its Own Terms,” an article of how Haitian photographers present Haiti to the world through an intimate and different lens. Alexandra Fuller provides a summary of Haitian history, highlighting people she has met through her travels through the country, who offer their own perspectives about life in Haiti. Fuller writes “Young Haitian photographers reveal determination, pride and beauty in a land where struggle and hardship are the norm.” The accompanying photographs were taken by students of FotoKonbit, a Haitian-run, U.S.-based nonprofit organization that teaches photography to youths and adults in Haiti.

[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] See excerpts here and the full article with a spectacular selections of photographs in the links below.

The Haitian student photographers ranged in age from 14 to their mid-30s, and they’d come from all parts of the country and from all backgrounds. Their mandate was so simple it verged on radical: To show the world Haiti as it is rarely seen—as they saw it. Not just a country of disasters, shocks, and aftershocks but also a place shot through with sunlight and glittering sea, a place stunned into focus by a child in an impeccable school uniform, rollicked by music and the seemingly spontaneous eruption of dancers blowing on bamboo trumpets through the haze of a street party. A place of pride and possibility.

“That’s good, because Haitians are tired of seeing stories in foreign papers about how helpless we are,” said Junior St. Vil, my translator and a travel consultant who has also embarked on a law degree. “There is so much beauty here, so much power.” [. . .]

For full article and series of photographs, see http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/haiti-photos-by-haitians-text

Also see http://lacaadvocacy.org/2015/11/24/showing-haiti-on-its-own-terms and https://www.facebook.com/fotokonbit