The Stories Behind the Photos

Every Partners In Health patient has a story to tell. We take pride in telling the stories of our patients, doctors, community health workers and more through respectful and ethical photography. Here, PIH employees tell the stories behind photos they’ve taken at our sites around the world.

 

Mtemankhawa, Malawi, April 2014
“Showing the true nature of poverty through photographs is impossible; however, there are rare photographs that capture, at least as best as an image can, an authentic moment from someone’s life or community. The many fabrics drying on the grass show the richness of Malawian/Mozambican style. As an aside, I also love that this photo shows how clean this community is. The narrative that is often applied to places where PIH works (poor countries and poor communities) is that there is less emphasis on cleanliness, which is absolutely untrue.” – Jon Lascher

Mtemankhawa, Malawi, April 2014
“Showing the true nature of poverty through photographs is impossible; however, there are rare photographs that capture, at least as best as an image can, an authentic moment from someone’s life or community. The many fabrics drying on the grass show the richness of Malawian/Mozambican style. As an aside, I also love that this photo shows how clean this community is. The narrative that is often applied to places where PIH works (poor countries and poor communities) is that there is less emphasis on cleanliness, which is absolutely untrue.” – Jon Lascher

Chifunga, Malawi, July 2015
“Malawi clinical team member Sitalire Kapira was training village health workers at a quarterly family planning refresher training. These trainings help our village health workers brush up on the latest skills and health messages so they can be a link between the community and the health facility.” – Jeanel Drake

Bobete, Lesotho, June 2014
“A small aircraft was being used to transport patients out of Bobete Health Center in the mountains of Lesotho. This referral system can be life-saving in a setting where there is no other means of getting to the next level of care.” – Jeanel Drake

Bobete, Lesotho, March 2016
“This is a patient [Mahlakela Letima] who lives in a community where we work, probably one of the most remote places that Partners In Health works. He was feeling ill at one point several years ago, came to a Partners In Health clinic that was newly established in his village, and was diagnosed with HIV. He went on treatment and is doing well. He had come back on this day to thank Partners In Health for helping him build a house, where he now lives with his family and HIV-negative children.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Bobete, Lesotho, March 2016
“This woman [Matlhokomelo Shoqo, left] lives in the mountains of Lesotho, delivered her baby safely at the clinic, and is about to walk home the day after. She’s placing a blanket over the shoulders of her birth attendant, who works for Partners In Health and is responsible for bringing all the pregnant women from her village to the clinic to make sure they get care. She attended this woman’s birth and is helping her get back to her village. Underneath that blanket is the baby. They’re about to walk several hours into the mountains the morning after the birth.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Maseru, Lesotho, June 2014
“A data clerk, Ntseliseng Mabitle, was working in the lab at the TB clinic in Maseru, Lesotho. I was in Lesotho on a cross-site learning visit documenting and sharing best practices between Lesotho and Malawi.” – Jeanel Drake

Mirebalais, Haiti, January 2014
“This is Paul Mainardi. He was telling us stories about his mental health issues, which began as a young adult, and how he was really shunned by his community because of his increasingly disturbing behavior. He’s the tall person in the center, he’s actually walking next to and with some of our clinicians who helped him get medication. He’s stable now, runs a radio program in central Haiti, and is just a really wonderful person.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Mirebalais, Haiti, May 2015
“This image was taken in Haiti. It’s a couple of clinicians who are actually in a larger circle, hands held in prayer, as they are about to perform surgery on a pair of conjoined twins at University Hospital in Mirebalais, which is the Partners In Health-supported hospital in central Haiti. These are surgeons; you can see the glasses that are worn to do very small work on very small patients.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Mirebalais, Haiti, September 2015
“These are the twins (left and center) who were separated during that surgery. There were triplets born, two of the triplets were conjoined, and they were successfully separated at University Hospital in Mirebalais by a team of surgeons that came from all over the country and joined the team in Mirebalais, Haiti. This is their mom, Manoucheca [Ketan], who is trying to juggle them while I’m photographing. She just slipped and almost dropped one of the triplets. So that’s a shot between the shots.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Lascahobas, Haiti, April 2016
“We were coming back from a home visit of a malnutrition patient and her grandmother. It sounds like a nice easy walk, but in reality was more of a vertical hike. The woman in the orange, Sabrina Joseph, is a community health nurse. Not only did she check in on the patient, but she made sure all of us were able to cross the stream safely. She was on one side and community member Lucien Jeun, the woman in black, stood on the other side making sure we didn’t fall. I was the last person to cross, and then Sabrina had to get herself over. It shows how far our staff will go to make sure they reach our patients, and how wonderful they are to make sure everyone else is OK.” – Cecille Joan Avila

Cange, Haiti, March 2011
“After playing for crowds of 100,000 people in cities around the world and winning the Grammy for album of the year, Arcade Fire flew to Haiti and played the first ever rock concert in Cange. And they were the openers. They played bathed in flood lights on a makeshift wooden stage in front of PIH’s warehouse. The crowd was a mix of patients and community members who had largely never heard their music. But by the time the band played “Power Out,” we could barely see the stage as the crowd was surrounded in a cloud of dust kicked up from all of the jumping. R.A.M., a well-known band from Port-au-Prince, followed Arcade Fire and the celebration continued for hours. It was like a mini-Coachella in Cange, which was badly needed following the earthquake and cholera outbreaks.” – Jon Lascher

Burera District, Rwanda, February 2015
“I was spending the day with the mental health MESH team. It’s always easier on the patient if you start out in the room and introduce yourself before the consultation starts and ask for permission to sit in, so you don’t intrude right in the middle. This was between patients and I was crammed in the corner of this tiny room trying not to get in the way of things. I just really liked the light coming through the door.” – Cecille Joan Avila

Rwinkwavu, Rwanda, August 2013
“I was with one community health worker who took me out to the home of a woman we’ve been working with named Constance Mukamunana. She told me a story about what seemed like a previous life time. She was living in Tanzania and was very ill, had a husband, and lost her first child to HIV. She came to Rwanda very, very sick, got on treatment, was able to get better, had more children—all healthy—has a house that Partners In Health helped her secure, and a job. She’s expressing her gratitude to a community health worker, who works with Partners In Health. We sat down and had an interview. This is just a sweet moment on our way out. A sweet, authentic moment where you can see the relationship between two people who live in the same space, had very different experiences, and now clearly have a relationship that will go on for the next several years as well.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Bong, Liberia, October 2014
“This was one of my first trips to an Ebola Treatment Unit. Learning about things like how the boots of the clinicians, who were actually working in the units and treating patients, needed to dry because everything was sprayed with chlorine. It was a highly infectious area, and there were rubber boots drying in the sunshine between shifts of folks working in the treatment unit.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Port Loko, Sierra Leone, January 2015
“This was an image I shot in a triage unit, which is basically the emergency room section of an Ebola Treatment Unit. On the left is one of our docs, Dr. Dana Clutter. The woman on the right came in and received her initial care and then was taken off into the unit.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Freetown, Sierra Leone, September 2015
“Yabom [Karoma] lost two of her very young children (a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old), her husband, and her father-in-law during the Ebola crisis. And then, after caring for them and losing them to Ebola, she was transferred to an Ebola Treatment Unit in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This was taken about a year later. I was able to visit Yabom’s home and her neighborhood. Over in the edge of the image is her grandson and another child who did not get sick during the crisis. Yabom was delighted to have us at her home and to be able to celebrate her recovery and really be able to share her life as a healthy, working person back in the swing of things.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Freetown, Sierra Leone, December 2015
“At the base of the hill below Yabom’s neighborhood along a main street, there was a tiny tin hut. I was waiting for our driver to come back and pick me up. I peered into this hut, and there was a guy there who’s a tailor and was making and repairing clothing. He’s got a measuring tape around his neck, and an old sewing machine is in the foreground. I leaned in and he nodded that I could shoot. That’s him with all of his beautiful Sierra Leonean fabric making beautiful clothing. Again just a day in the life of somebody who’s working in the Mountain Court neighborhood of Sierra Leone.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Lunsar, Sierra Leone, December 2015
“One of my favorite days in Sierra Leone was spent in Lunsar, a town with a long history of injustice. In the last two decades, Lunsar has been ravaged by war, a mining industry, and an Ebola outbreak. As part of PIH Sierra Leone’s education initiative, adult Ebola survivors were enrolled in literacy classes. On the day I took this photo, I visited four such classes. Kadiatu Kanu (left) had just returned to her desk after successfully writing her name on the blackboard. She was beaming at the board, absorbing praise as her classmates applauded her progress. When Kadiatu returned to her seat, she opened her notebook to show off her work. This is one of my favorite photos taken in Sierra Leone. I try and fail to Imagine the difficulty confronting Kadiatu. She survived Ebola, and is managing the ensuing health complications. She makes money anyway she can. She has to buy food and school uniforms for her family. Despite all of the forces that would stand in the way of her education, she is in that classroom, learning to read and write. That kind of commitment to education is universal, and is especially pronounced in places that have been deprived of opportunities for so long.” – Jon Lascher

Chiapas, Mexico, March 2014
“This is one of the young docs who works with us. His name is Eduardo Peters. In Mexico, a lot of the folks who work with us are pasantes, young doctors who graduate from medical school and basically volunteer to go into the community for a year. Partners In Health is delighted to have them working with us in the clinics we support in some of the most remote places in Chiapas, Mexico. And that’s where Eduardo was in this shot. He was living in the community, working in the community, and quite a beloved member of the community in Chiapas.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Navajo Nation in New Mexico, April 2012
“Marie Begay is one of the longest working community health representatives in Navajo. On this day, she invited me to come with her and drive around in her truck. She’s checking on people who have heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, which are all big issues in Navajo. This person wasn’t home, so she’s leaving them a note saying, ‘I’ve been around, I’ll be back around again,’ and just letting folks know that she’s there supporting them. In fact, as we drove away from this home, they were coming up the road, and we were able to stop and have a conversation with them. Marie is just one of almost 14,000 community health workers Partners In Health works with around the world. We’re very proud to have them at the core of our mission.” – Rebecca E. Rollins

Navajo Nation in Arizona, May 2015
“A PIH writer and I were hanging out with a community health representative during her rounds, when we pulled up in front of a patient’s house to see if they were home. All of a sudden, these dogs came out of nowhere, which was amazing. As I tried to get out of the truck, they were just running by my feet, seeing what we were up to.” – Cecille Joan Avila

Photo information.