The Group in Orange Farm

This is the group of young people I'm working with in Orange Farm. The youngest is Jabulile who is 16 and the eldest is Rooi who's 33. They're all members of VRCO a community organisation which operates in Orange Farm.

I’ve been working as a freelance photographer and facilitator since 2000 or so and have had a strong personal and professional interest in Africa for many years. So when the UK charity PhotoVoice told me about a planned project in South Africa, asking if I was available, I jumped at the chance.
I’d lived in Durban in the late 1990’s just after the first democratic elections post-apartheid dismantled and Mandela had walked free. This project offered me my first return visit to the country and my first visit to Johannesburg.

PhotoVoice trains groups of people all over the world in photography, groups who are on the margins of their society – streetchildren, refugees, people with disabilities. Photography becomes a tool to tell their story to a world-wide audience and enables them engage in debates on issues that affect them.

This project runs from October until December 2006, working with young people who live in Orange Farm, a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg with a population of over 1million. The group are members of Vukuzenzele Reflect Community Organisation which works in a township that faces the challenge of 70% unemployment, extreme poverty and high rates of HIV/AIDS infection.

Their photography and stories will focus on the theme of HIV /AIDS and the issues the pandemic touches and will be collated into an exhibition to coincide with World AIDS Day at the beginning of December.

Links for more info: www.photovoice.org and www.lydiamartin.net