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Response Photography Competition 2005
Photo Contest Theme: “Engaging the Culture, Changing
the World”
First Place: Maama Paula
Hillary Prag, SPU Senior, Sociology Major
WHEN HILLARY PRAG TRAVELED to Uganda last
summer, she brought along her knitting needles and yarn. “I
learned to knit from a friend during my freshman year at SPU,”
she says. “It was a therapeutic remedy for homesickness.”
For part of her seven-week stay in Uganda, Prag volunteered
in the capital city of Kampala at Dwelling Places, a Christian-run
orphanage where single mothers who run out of options bring
their children. While the orphanage staff cares for the children,
the mothers’ needs are addressed too. “Through
Dwelling Places’ Family Empowerment Program, mothers
learn how to support themselves by making and selling handcrafts,”
says Prag. “Once the women can establish a sustainable
income from these crafts, their children are re-established
in their homes."
While visiting a handcraft class, Prag met a Ugandan volunteer
who introduced herself simply as “Maama Paula.”
Not a teacher or a social worker, Maama Paula, says Prag,
“was a mentor for mothers who were struggling to find
their feet.”
Prag, who had her knitting needles and yarn in hand, suddenly
got an idea. “Would you like me to teach you how to
knit?” she asked Maama Paula, who agreed and caught
on quickly. “She then turned around and taught the other
women,” says Prag, who photographed her Ugandan friend.
Where knitting needles were scarce, the women created their
own — out of wire coat hangers. “This new craft
has caught on, and they are well on their way to establishing
a new market for scarves in Uganda,” says Prag, who
has since mailed boxes of knitting needles and yarn to Dwelling
Places. This program is really a beautiful picture of the
kind of ‘empowerment’ we at SPU so eagerly salute.”
Runner-Up: Francisco’s Bell.
“I met Francisco Hermoso on a service trip
to Guatemala,” says Jonathan Bergstrom ’01. “Francisco
discovered this unexploded bomb in a river near his home.
He dug it up, took it apart, cleaned it off, and hung it from
a tree. It is now the most beautiful sounding bell I have
ever heard. Thank you, Francisco, for turning a bomb into
an instrument of peace.”
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