I’m off again to Africa! It will be Kenya this time once again in support of the non-profit New Course. New Course has started a program with the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust in the Chyulu Hills (the Green Hills of Africa) helping women gain an economic foothold while restoring this part of Kenya’s Northern Rangelands. I will be taking photos and writing to tell this important interactive story.
New Course has also started a big micro financing initiative in the local communities to sell Luci Lights. (Luci Lights are the small, inflatable solar lights that I have blogged about before) The basic idea behind this effort is rather than give 200 Luci Lights to 200 people New Course is giving 50 Luci Lights to four women who will then start a business selling them to the other 196. This kind of effort has proved successful in many parts of the developing world and it not only builds a habit of business and saving but it produces ripple effects that benefit many others. It is my job to take photos of the women and Luci Lights.
This should be plenty to keep me very busy for the 6 days I am going to be on site but I have a side project the nicely overlaps the efforts of New Course. Many of you know that I have started a non-profit of my own called All About the Light whose mission is to give Luci Lights to travelers, especially photographers, who will then give the lights to energy impoverished people they meet on their trip. (As soon as I have everything in place I will announce AATL on my website and blog). AATL works in close association with MPOWERD, the maker of Luci Lights, and so I will also be getting images to support MPOWERD and AATL.
What gear am I bringing? Same old stuff- 2 camera bodies (Nikon D4 and D750), 3 lenses (16-35, 24-120, 80-400), polarizing filters, lots of memory cards, my travel tripod and a whole tangled pile of cords, chargers and card readers. I am also bringing two little terabyte hard drives for backup and my little 11″ MacAir laptop to do all the editing, writing and hopefully emailing and blogging.
I have no idea if I will have access to the internet or even if I will have electricity every day so don’t count on much news from me for 10 days or so. Consider this little quiet hiatus a person mental health break. But don’t get used to it- I’ll be roaring again before you know it.
