Owyda Denyse Clarke
E-mail
In April 2000, I toured the country
of Ethiopia with a non-profit organization called The Africa Project.
I mentored nine inner-city photojournalism high school students for two
weeks with the director of the program, Mr. Clarence Davis. Most of the
kids had never traveled abroad and Africa was a dream come true. The goals
of the Africa project are to give inner-city youth an opportunity to explore
new worlds, gain a better sense of African culture and their own heritage.
The students were trained extensively in photojournalism and taught the
latest photographic techniques, news judgement and professional ethics.
While in Ethiopia, we visited the eleven medieval monolithic cave churches of the 13th century in Lalibela. The churches are carved entirely out of one solid piece of stone set in the side of a mountain. People still worship in these churches daily. Some of our time was spent in downtown Addis Ababa, the capital city, shopping, dining in restaurants, and finally enjoying our heavenly place of rest - the Addis Ababa Hilton hotel with running water. In two weeks I shot over 500 digital images, all meaningful. Although, I am a photo editor by trade, it was especially difficult to choose which photos to best represent this adventure.
