A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words?

This week we started the main part of the photovoice project. Before I begin my story for this week I will give you some background information.

First, I need to give some more information on the teachers:
Mr. Shankar: He is a teacher at the school who also serves as a liaison between Mahita and the Smile Foundation, which is a national nonprofit that strives to promote universal education among children from underprivileged backgrounds. Smile partners with various non-profits around the nation to sponsor education and health awareness programs such as the Cambridge School.
Ms. Lalitha: She has been working with Mahita and the Cambridge School for over seven years. She is also a resident of the slum, and knows the area better than anyone else.

Second, I must explain that the eight kids whom I had selected last week did not all show up this week, so I had to make do with those who were there. Especially since it is summer break, the students come as they please to the school and don't really have regular attendance. Therefore, for the second time I went through and explained my project. However, this time I allowed those students whom I had selected last week to lead the discussion and help the new participants understand the goals of the research. We spent the beginning of the week discussing the ethics of photography, and the kinds of pictures that we are allowed to take as researchers. The children were very insistent that they understood, so after I explained to them how to use the Kodak cameras, we split up into two groups. This week, a girl named Sandhya joined my group of researchers. Although a little older than the rest (she is in the 10th grade), she has become one of the most helpful people for this project. So, when we split off into two groups to take pictures, I chose Sandhya to lead one group of four, and I led the other three participants with the teachers.

My story:
My group consisted of both of the teachers and three of the child participants. We started walking down the lanes of Rasoolpura, which I found out is a large area split into many different "basthis," or small neighborhoods. Each of these basthis is distinctly different in terms of racial and religious identity, but taken as a whole, Rasoolpura is a diverse community. So, as we started walking, the kids ran about taking pictures of what they found interesting, but it didn't take long for me to realize that my "ethics" speech had gone through one ear and out the other for them. They started taking pictures of everything and everyone, so the teachers and I kept reminding them that they must first ask permission before taking pictures. It didn't seem like much of a problem at first. In fact, before we knew it there was a horde of people following us around because they thought we were reporters from TV9, a local news channel.

Halfway through the day, a little boy ran up to me and said, "Sister, the men over there are yelling at Mr. Shankar." So, I went over and saw that there was a verbal argument between Mr. Shankar and a group of very, very big men. They men were saying that some girl took a picture of them and ran away, and they demanded that we bring the girl to them or that something bad would happen. Soon, a mob of 20-30 people surrounded us, demanding what was wrong, and with everyone yelling in Hindi, I could only understand certain phrases, which happened to be "murder", "bits and pieces" and "who do you think we are?" Then, one of the men began to push around Mr. Shankar, tapping him “slightly” on the back of the neck. Another man snatched the cameras from the kids. Amid this confusion and yelling, I started crying. My crying calmed everyone a little and some of the women held my hand and told me that everything was alright and took me inside their house. Inside the house, the women offered me water, which I was hesitant to drink, but I drank it anyway so as to not disrespect them further. One of the older women said, “Child, why are you crying? Do you think we would let anything happen to you?”

This is when Ms. Lalitha came to the rescue. She was a little farther away when this all started, but she entered the chaos and swiftly explained the project to the residents. She said, "These kids are doing a project for school. This girl is from America, she can't speak Hindi that well, so screaming at her will do you no good. They are simply taking pictures of problems within our neighborhood, so hopefully someone can fix them. You all complain that nobody does anything about the issues here, and now someone is trying to help, and you made her cry." It was actually pretty funny because Ms Lalitha is about 5 ft tall and she took on a whole mob of towering men. After things calmed down, one of the men said, "Recently, one of our people was murdered and their body was cut into bits and pieces and delivered to us in a bag. So, when you just come and take pictures, we were scared as to what happened." We asked them how recent this was, and the man said "Some 20 to 25 years ago."

After this when everyone finally understood that we were all just innocent school children, the men came up to me and apologized, and the eldest man gave me some great advice. He said, "What you are doing is great, in fact, if you had told us first about this project and why you are taking pictures, we would let you take a hundred even a thousand pictures, but you just need to tell us clearly. Anyways, you need to be strong. There is no need to cry when you know you aren't doing anything wrong." It was some of the best advice that I have ever received. They gave us back our cameras, and insisted that we take pictures of them, so they pulled out their combs and starting brushing their hair and posed in front of a tree (Not the kind of picture we wanted for our reserach, but we let it slide). This argument had lasted about an hour or so, so we were all tired by the time it finished and went back to the school to wait for the other group. The other group strolled in smiling an hour later and said, "Oh, back so early?"

Overall, I learned a lot this week. I guess I have been pretty sheltered my whole life, so I was kind of naive about what to expect when I decided to research in the "slums."I realized that the word "slum" is not some geographically isolated term, but rather a conglomeration of the social, religious and racial complexities that exist in an overcrowded and under recognized area. Many of the residents of Rasoolpura are uneducated, so throwing foreign things upon them can become overwhelming. Furthermore, I understood the importance of communication and more importantly the importance of effective communication: a communication that needs to be altered depending on the various factors that define the recipient, such as age, gender, class and vernacular.

Secondly, a lot of the time in non profit and service projects, a group of wealthy, educated individuals tries to go into “needy” areas in order to “fix” something. However, these individuals are completely removed from the dynamics of the situation that they are in fact trying to fix. That is why I commend Mahita for selecting a woman from Rasoolpura to teach at the local school. Ms. Lalitha helped greatly in this situation in not only serving as a liaison for both sides, but also in knowing who she was dealing with. Everyone knows everyone to some level in Rasoolpura, no matter what bhasthi you live in. In fact, Ms. Lalitha walks through this neighborhood everyday on her way to school, so utilizing relationships such as these are vital when trying to initiate social change. The wisdom and experience of community members should never be dismissed when creating community based partnerships.

I also learned the importance of having a positive mindset in new situations. Combined with the fears that my family instilled in me with every email and phone call, I was honestly pretty scared when I got to Rasoolpura, especially when I had to leave the school and walk around. Thus, as soon as this dispute escalated, I immediately started to cry because I had gone into the situation with a negative attitude. However, after it all, I realized that they were all normal people, probably more normal than me. In fact, if someone ran into my dorm at UNC, took a picture, and ran away, I don’t even know how I would react.