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Photo teacher brings South Africa to students
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November 8, 2011
Brandi Whyte
Photography students will share the same curriculum with students who live more than 8,000 miles away.
The photography department is collaborating with students at Belgravia High Schoolin Gugulethu, South Africa, to create a book of photos that will document the lives of the two groups of students within a 24-hour-period. Photography teacher Eric Mittman visited Gugulethu, a small township on the outskirts of Cape Town, this past summer as a part of the Toyota International Teacher Program. He was awarded a position in this program by creating an impact plan with the goal of joining forces with the students there.
“Creating a photo book of that collaboration is what inspired me to attempt that trip. I’m inspired by creating global awareness because I want my students to see how other kids live in other parts of the world,” Mittman said.
Only 24 teachers of the thousand that applied were admitted into the program, which focused onSouth Africa’s history as well as the country’s environmental issues. Involved teachers toured Johannesburg, Durbanand Capetown over the course of two and a half weeks. Mittman was astonished by the poverty he encountered in the country, where shantytowns exist across the street from first-rate government housing.
“The disparity between the rich and the poor is phenomenal.South Africais both a first- and a third-world country,” Mittman said.
Mittman is determined for the photo book to open his students’ eyes to the impoverished conditions in Gugulethu and other townships.South Africaexisted in a state of apartheid, racial discrimination by law, until 1994. Race laws legally separated the country’s different ethnicities in an effort to establish a dominant white race, which received the majority of government funding, leaving the rest of the diverse nation to live in poverty. Although apartheid was outlawed seventeen years ago, its effects still linger.
“I want my students to understand these students and what happened to them. Their government was apartheid; it was a government based on race. There were few haves, and many, many, many have-nots,” Mittman said, “South African schools have been divided for many, many years along racial lines, and funding for these schools varied upon which race attended the school- white schools received more funding than Indian or black schools.”
Although funding atBelgraviaHigh Schoolis limited, Mittman and his students are helping to alleviate some of its financial worries. Proceeds from the book, which is tentatively titled “Worlds Connected, Worlds Apart: A Day in a Life of Students fromSouth AfricaandAlabama,” will go directly toBelgravia. Many photography students have donated digital cameras to assist in establishingBelgravia’s own photo program.
“I want to get cameras into their hands. They already have a small computer lab, so they could use the lab with these cameras,” Mittman said.
Mittman hopes to continue this project with another school or new students next year. Many of his current students have reacted positively to the collaboration withBelgravia.
“I think it is a good experience for a lot of people to interact with kids from a different country and to do an outreach program with them,” junior Emily Dickerson said.
