The African country of Ethiopia has an overwhelming number of orphans known as the ‘Lost Generation’. Here around five million children have lost one or both parents to famine, war, and disease, in particular AIDS. Many live on the streets scrounging for food and shelter in a daily struggle to survive.
In 2011 Australian photographer Kerry Pryor first visited Ethiopia’s Beyond the Orphanage foundation, an organisation that works with children who have lost both parents, placing them in what she calls “a new dynamic of foster care”. Through the support of Beyond the Orphanage the children are sponsored to attend school and live with extended family members and guardians.
Since that first trip, Pryor has returned annually to Ethiopia to continue her association with the children and Beyond the Orphanage forming close ties with those who have let her into their lives and homes to share their stories.
“This project has changed me. Packing my bags and heading to Ethiopia to visit the children every year is such a fantastic part of what I get to do as a photographer,” she says. “This is a world that is so far removed from what most of us know or could even imagine. My exhibition takes you into the homes of these orphaned children and aims to give an insight to who lives here.”
EXHIBITION
Who Lives Here?
by Kerry Pryor
Part of Head On Photo Festival
Until June 29th, 2014
Leichhardt Library
23 Norton Street
Leichhardt
Australia
https://headon.com.au
http://www.kerrypryorphotography.com.au
