The start of great new project with Los Centro Colombo Americanos in 4 Cities! Part 1 is Cali!

Today is my 1st post on this blog in 5 years as I have been working during this time to create the non-profit Photography Without Borders and have been chronicling the adventures of my students on our Facebook page. I am resurrecting this blog to document a personal project this summer where I am returning to Colombia to work with youth in 4 Colombian cities on an initiative called Desearte Paz (Wishing You Peace), a project of los Centro Colombo Americanos of Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga, and Manizalez. The Colombos are located in many major Colombian cities and promote the exchange of culture between the US and Colombia. Last year I had an amazing experience bringing down 4 of my Philadelphia students to Medellin to work with El Colombo in Medellín and that amazing experience (again, check out our Facebook Page!) led to this year's larger project.

The first stop in this amazing tour is my mother's hometown of Cali where i am working with a group of youth in El Tecnocentro Cultural Somos Pacifico, located in the district of Aguablanca. Today was our first class and after meeting my students I put them to work painting the insides of their pinhole cameras that they will be using tomorrow. They also got to see an introductory video where my Shutterbugs Yaitza Figueroa and Jahaira Romero helped me get them started with some basic photographic concepts and whet their appetite for what we will be doing the next 2 weeks. We got off to a wonderful start today and the rest of our blog posts this week will be by the students themselves so stay tuned!