The VII Foundation newsletter (Frontline Report March)

Alona says goodbye to her husband Nikoli as she flees westward in Ukraine with her child on March 7, 2022. Photo by Ron Haviv / VII.

The challenge of living in a world where beliefs and actions are increasingly out-of-sync with facts and realities is never ending. The VII Foundation’s mission is to harness the power of first-person visual journalism to expose these truths by putting the story into the hands of people living with those realities.

Dear Friends,

After photographing war, injustice, and inhumanity of many kinds for two decades, I thought there were few acts of atrocity beyond my imagination. I was wrong; I could not imagine Ukraine. 

In January, in our first report, I wrote that "when we turn on our screens and look at our news feeds, we witness politicians of every stripe constantly changing facts, politicizing information, and undermining our fragile societies." Even that seems understated now. For all of us, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has underlined the fragility of the universal desire for peace and a life without fear and the vulnerability every one of us faces when confronted by avarice, criminality, and unconstrained brutality and ambition.

War blinds peace, but when we are breaking frozen ground to bury children in mass graves, the urgency to summon the courage to find a path to peace could not be more profound. The VII Foundation's signature project, Imagine: Reflections on Peace, examines the realities of how post-conflict societies emerge from war and explores how to make better and more resilient peace agreements. It is exhibiting at two significant locations this spring. First, it opens at the National Museum of Bosnia in Sarajevo in April. This symbolic museum is situated on what we used to know as 'Sniper Alley' and was on the frontline during the siege of Sarajevo. Then, in June, we open the exhibition at the United States Institute for Peace in Washington DC, established by the US Congress in 1984 as an independent institution devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation of deadly conflict abroad.

The necessity of trustworthy journalism and evidence-based reporting to free societies and democratic culture could not be more apparent. And the need to support the men and women who readily put themselves at risk to bring us the horrific stories that document war has rarely been more compelling. 

Our sister organization VII Agency has eight photographers working in Ukraine and Poland, providing essential coverage. Ali Arkady, Eric Bouvet, Ron Haviv, Joachim Ladefoged, Maciek Nabrdalik, Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Espen Rasmussen, and John Stanmeyer have all been working in Kyiv, Lviv, and on the Polish border. VII Insider's online community hosts special audio dispatches from Kyiv by Eric Bouvet and Ron Haviv, and Ilvy Njiokiktjien in Lviv, sharing how they work in an active war zone. In solidarity with our Ukrainian colleagues, The VII Foundation supports hazardous environment training for Ukrainian journalists.

The VII Academy in Sarajevo has trained refugees and migrants in Bosnia to tell their own stories for the last year. "Dispatches in Exile" is the product of a partnership with the International Organization for Migration, and a selection of the stories was recently published in the Bosnian daily newspaper Oslobodenje. We hope that "Dispatches in Exile" will be replicated for other refugee populations, including those forced to leave Ukraine. In the meantime, VII Academy alumni have been photographing Ukrainians who have had to flee and seek sanctuary in Moldova and Romania. 

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, reminded us this week that even amid the war in Ukraine, "nowhere on earth are people more at risk than Tigray." John Edwin Mason will address Tigray's media coverage in an upcoming essay on VII Insider's blog. For those of us who seek a more inclusive, evidence-based picture of the world, the VII Foundation is the non-profit media education organization transforming visual journalism by giving local voices the power to have a real impact on global events. We continue to pursue our global mission by launching our first Level 1 Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Seminar for English speakers in Sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
If you would like to support the programs and initiatives of the VII Academy or The VII Foundation, or if you would like to partner with us or join one of our programs, please don't hesitate to contact us. 

I join you all in looking forward to better times, 

Gary Knight
CEO
The VII Foundation

Irpin Bridge, Ukraine, March 8, 2022. Civilians, including patients from a hospice for the elderly, attempt to flee the fighting in the city of Irpin, Ukraine. Photo by Eric Bouvet / VII.

Projects

Hazardous environment training is essential for managing the risk to visual journalists working in conflict zones. The VII Foundation has been working with Silk Road Training to provide a safety, security and first aid learning experience that can help raise global safety standards as well as develop the skills of everyone living and working in hostile environments. This training is now being provided to VII Academy’s 13 mentees and 14 fellows, as well as journalists and producers from Ukraine currently operating in the current war.

Dispatches in Exile

VII Academy in Sarajevo has for the last year trained refugees and migrants in Bosnia to tell their stories of the journey to sanctuary. These stories have then been published on Dispatches in Exile, a media portal produced in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration that showcases these first-person accounts. A selection of the stories was recently published in the Bosnian newspaper Oslobodenje in an eight page insert (cover image above), edited by some of the participants in collaboration with staff from Oslobodenje and VII Academy. The VII Foundation is now in discussions to see how Dispatches in Exile can train refugees and migrants who have fled other conflicts around the world.

Alumni work on the border with Ukraine

According to the UNHCR, nearly 3.5 million Ukrainians have (at the time of writing) been forced to flee the war. Poland has taken in more than 2 million refugees, and Romania is the second most significant destination, with more than 500,000 people having crossed the border. VII Academy alumni Vladimir Zivojinovic, Ioana Moldovan, Andrei Pungovschi, and Alexandra Radu have been photographing on the border between Ukraine and Romania, and their work has been featured on the VII Academy Instagram feed. According to Ioana, “The border crossing in Siret has never been so crowded. Thousands of Ukrainians, relocating to what they believe is a safer place, are crossing into Romania. The waiting line on the Ukrainian side stretches for kilometers. Teenagers, mothers with small babies, grandparents accompanying their grandkids, are pushing or carrying the little they managed to pack in their escape from war."

Some customers comply with the COVID-19 protective measures enacted by the Congolese state, while others seem to live their lives normally without even wearing a mask, which is compulsory during this period of containment following the declaration of the state of emergency for DR Congo. Ngaliema, Kinshasa, DR Congo, 29 April 2020. ©Justin Makangara for VII Academy.

New course for African photographers

VII Academy is launching its first Level 1 Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Seminar for English speakers in Sub-Saharan Africa. VII Academy will offer scholarships to 10 photographers who are citizens and residents of the following countries: Angola, Botswana, the Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The course is led by South African picture editor, photojournalist and educator Paul Botes and will begin on 22 April. The participants will explore how to develop a lasting career in visual storytelling, including conceiving, researching and planning story ideas. The deadline for application is March 30 at 2359 EDT.

VII Insider’s online community continues to provide an open platform for public debate and discussion, including on the war in Ukraine. On the VII Insider blog, you will find special audio dispatches from Eric Bouvet and Ron Haviv in Kyiv, and Ilvy Njiokiktjien in Lviv, detailing how they are working daily in order to make their photographs. In addition, VII Insider has hosted a debate about ethics in a time of war, and published on its blog the first video - looking at Ron Haviv's coverage of the Irpin evacuation and Ukrainian resistance - from a new partnership with the visual culture and media literacy foundation Reading The Pictures. 

Members of the VII Insider community get access to weekly live presentations, and can view the video collection, which contains nearly 100 recordings of educational discussions. Check out the upcoming events and new writing and video presentations on the VII Insider blog.

VII Insider is a program of The VII Foundation in partnership with PhotoWings and VII Agency.

VII's Arles Exhibition Opening

With the support of Jennifer Stengaard Gross and Peter Stengaard, and the William, Jeff, and Jennifer Gross Foundation, VII Academy has opened a new facility for advanced media education, exhibition, and discourse in Arles, France.

Named The Alexandra Boulat Campus in honor of the late Alexandra Boulat, one of the founding photographers of VII Photo Agency, the facility is housed in a former salt warehouse on the banks of the Rhone River at the mouth of the Camargue delta. This building will join the VII Academy space in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, to offer advanced level tuition-free training in visual journalism to men and women from the majority world and other under-represented communities from G20 countries. With this presence in Arles — a UNESCO World Heritage site and the former provincial capital of Rome — VII Academy will be close to the world’s leading festival of photography, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, as well as the French National School of Photography and the Luma Foundation.

Lebanon Background for "Imagine: Reflections on Peace"

I wrote the following brief history and background of post-colonial Lebanon for the website that the VII Foundation is developing in support of the publication of Imagine: Reflections on Peace:

Shatila Refugee Camp, 2007

Nichole Sobecki, EPIIC ’06, EXPOSURE ’04-‘08

Lebanon has endured decades of sectarian struggle, bitter internecine conflict, bloody vendettas, suicide bombings, invasions, and wars. 

Since its independence in 1943 from France’s Mandatory rule, Lebanon’s fragile governance has been based on its National Pact, a complex division of power granting preferential status to the then majority Maronite Christian community, over its Shiite, Sunni, and Druze citizens. The rationale for this was Lebanon’s 1932 census, the only official census conducted to this day.

Despite being the Arab world’s first democracy, Lebanon has been in a perpetual battle for supremacy between its eighteen sects, enflamed by religious hatred, extremist leftist secular politics, and Palestinian radicalism. This noxious brew ultimately immersed the country in a brutal civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. The war was marked by many atrocities, including the 1976 Karantina massacre of approximately 1,500 Palestinian refugees by right-wing Christian militias. The casualties counted well over 100,000 fatalities, and an estimated one million internally displaced people.

In 1975, Syria, which always considered Lebanon to be part of “Greater Syria,” aligned itself with the Christian Maronites. In 1982, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards entered to arm and support their Shiite co-religionists. The nucleus of their army became Hezbollah, which in 1983 committed a devastating jihadi suicide bomber attack on the barracks of US Marine Peacekeepers, hastening the American departure from Lebanon.

The Saudi-brokered 1989 Taif Agreement finally ended the atrocities and enacted structural reforms in an effort to create a more equitable political balance of power. It disarmed sectarian militias, but allowed Hezbollah to retain its arms as a “resistance force” against Israel. 

Lebanon’s sovereignty has frequently been violated. In 1948 and then again in 1967, the country was forced to absorb Palestinian refugees fleeing Israel. In 1970, a large number of Palestinian fighters fleeing Jordan entered Lebanon after failing to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom. The Palestinians attempted to create their own armed enclave among the Shiite Muslims in the south, but their presence was deeply resented. Palestinians cross-border incursions into Israel prompted two Israeli invasions of Lebanon, one in 1978 and one in 1982. The Israelis forced the Palestinian’s north into Beirut, beseiged the city, and forced Arafat’ and his fighters to depart for Tunisia. The Israelis then created a security buffer zone in southern Lebanon and occupied the twelve-mile territory through a mercenary Lebanese force for eighteen years, until 2000.

Recently, Lebanon’s fragile internal equilibrium has been further battered, with one and a half million civilians escaping the Syrian civil war crossed the border, seeking refuge. Currently, refugees compose a staggering one-quarter of the Lebanon’s population, the largest proportion refugee per capita in the world. Temporarily settled in camps, towns and cities, fifty-eight percent of them live in extreme poverty. The strains on its infrastucture and economy have been severe.

The Lebanese government’s problematic policies towards refugees further complicate its search for peace and stability. Palestinians are kept stateless. Even if born in the country, they cannot gain citizenship and they are banned from most professions and business ownership. Two-thirds of the estimated 175,000 Palestinians live in poverty in refugee camps.

The country also suffers from other challenges. Institutions are exceedingly weak, rule of law is ineffective, and corruption is rampant. These all contribute to stark inequality and wealth disparity. Given the decades of chaos, unrest and violence, far more of Lebanon’s citizens have opted to live abroad than in their own country.

While Lebanon’s civil society is weak, it has at times exposed the potential for reform.  In 2005, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a truck bombing, in which the Assad Syrian regime was implicated. A massive, sustained non-violent protest movement, the Cedar Revolution, finally ended thirty years of Syrian occupation. And in 2015, a coalition of nonsectarian students, social actvisits, and remnants of a middle class, all disgusted with an ossified system of patronage and political paralysis, organized the “You Stink!” movement. Sparked a garbage collection crisis of many months, they organized mass demonstrations challenging the status quo. The mobilization ultimately had limited environmental impact, but the challenge was enough to unify the usually polarized factions, which came together to narrowly defeat the protesters in 2016 municipal elections.

To this day, Lebanon remains a hot arena for proxy warfare between Palestinian factions, Israeli forces, Hezbollah and other Shiite clients of Iran, and Saudi Arabian influence. In 2017, Saudi Arabia invited Sunni Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh, where he was detained and forced to publicly resign in a humiliating attempt to collapse a Lebanese coalition government that empowered Hezbollah.  Hezbollah nonethless gained strength and ministerial positions in the 2019 elections and remains a powerful and coercive force.

Domestically, the Taif Agreement failed to confront Lebanon’s intense underlying domestic emnities, providing no process for reconciliation of the powerful Christian, Muslim and other Lebanese sectarian factions. In her essay, “Fire Under the Ashes,” Robin Wright identifies how identity politics have hardened in Lebanon and in much of the Arab world. She believes that “perhaps the most enduring legacy of Lebanon’s civil war may be a string of new wars,” whether internal or external.

The odds of success seem remote for the demands of young reformers: that the country’s veteran warlords finally cede to a new technocratic leadership. Lebanon remains an avatar of what conflict experts term “negative peace,” the absence of overt violence, in stark contrast to “positive peace,” efforts at harmony and community healing. The Palestinian actress, activist and writer, Mira Sidawi, born in Lebanon’s Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, asserts that “peace needs equality,” and speaks of her desire to “work in the path of peace. A path to freedom for everyone.” She asks, “Perhaps we should all lose the privilege of identity. Why can’t we all become refugees?

Nichole Sobecki - "Her Take: (Re)Thinking Masculinity"

One of my extraordinarily talented former students, Nichole “Nicki” Sobecki, is now one of the VII Photo Agency’s photographers.

She has just visited Boston with other members of the “Seven of VII” - the seven women of VII Photo Agency - to present on their project “Her Take: (Re)Thinking Masculinity.”

Nicki is an EPIIC alumna, and one of the first formidable student leaders in the Institute’s inaugural photojournalism program, Exposure.

Her stellar undergraduate documentary work with Exposure included A Khmer Prognosis: Health in Cambodia, Disarming the Kibus: Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Battle for Lebanon: The Nahr Al Bared Conflict, and Between Bhutto and the Border in Pakistan. In Rwanda, she also created the Amahoro Project: Obstacles and Advances in Rwandan Reconstruction (Amahoro Kinyarwanda word for “peace”).

She shot and edited the video documentary “The Luckiest Man: Gun Violence in Urban America,” and “Shooting for Peace” in Uganda.

Nicki presenting her photography

I brought her and her colleagues in “Seven of VII” to the Albright Institute at Wellesley, where she also presented her work on refugees impacted by climate change in Africa.

One of her colleagues who presented with her was Sara Terry. LINK

Sara was one of Exposures mentors, and her Aftermath Project co-led Exposure trips in Uganda and at Wounded Knee.

Sara Terry, center

VII Foundation Newsletter

The VII Foundation is entering a very exciting 2019, with the culmination of its Peace Project, the creation of a full-fledged Academy in Perpigan, France, and much else.

I have finished reviewing the manuscript for the forthcoming Peace Project book, which I found fascinating and tremendously powerful. The book, which will cover the tremulous peace in Bosnia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Liberia, Northern Ireland, and Rwanda, features contributions from eminent journalists and photographers who reported on the former conflicts.

Particularly meaningful is VII’s profile of Shahidul Alam, and its creation of two student grants at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, one in honor of Shahidul and the other in honor of the late Alexandra Boulat:

Shahidul Alam

On November 20, 2018, after more than 100 days in prison, Shahidul Alam, a member of our VII Foundation Advisory Board, was released on bail, but the case against him has not been dropped. If convicted after trial, he faces a jail term of up to 14 years on charges of spreading propaganda against the government under Bangladesh’s Information Communication and Technology Act (ICT), a law that human rights groups have decried as ‘draconian.’ 
He has received a number of awards recently, some accepted by friends and family who fought for his release from prison. These include the Frontline Club Tribute Award, the Lucie Humanitarian Award, and being named among TIME magazine's Person of the Year 2018. 
VII Photo Agency and the VII Foundation were involved in advocating for Shahidul’s release. Board member Sherman Teichman led that initiative for the Foundation and we will continue to support Shahidul in the coming months. The VII Academy will be supporting the Chobi Mela Festival, which was founded by Shahidul in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in February by sending teachers to work with Bangladeshi students during the festival.  

Alexandra Boulat & Shahidul Alam Grants

After a research trip by Gary to the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark, we stepped in to replace two grants that had been withdrawn from the school by the Danish Government (due to reduced funding for journalism education) for students from the majority world. We asked that one grant be given to a female and one to a male student and that they be given in honor of Alexandra Boulat and Shahidul Alam. Once the grants were announced, there were over 50 applicants in 48 hours. The Directors of the Danish School selected Deepti Asthanafrom India, who received The Alexandra Boulat Grant, and Mushfiq Mahbub Turjo from Bangladesh, who received The Shahidul Alam Grant to study photojournalism for one semester in the spring of 2019. Both grants were funded by the VII Academy with funds donated by Jennifer and include accommodation, tuition, and some expenses. 
The Alexandra Boulat Grant is given in remembrance of the late prize-winning French photographer who was a member and co-founder of VII Photo Agency. The Shahidul Alam Grant is given in honor of the great importance Shahidul Alam has for the development of independent photojournalism, particularly elevating the presence of young men and women from the majority world.

Shahidul Finally Receives Bail

Shahidul, who has been in jail and repeatedly denied bail since early August, has finally been given leave from detainment by Bangladesh’s High Court. The charges brought against him by the government, however, have not been dropped, despite an international outcry denouncing them as an act of intimidation and stifling of free expression.

Seminar on Behalf of Jamal Khashoggi and Shahidul Alam

I spoke today on behalf of Jamal Khashoggi and Shahidul Alam, with Ambassador William Milam, who has served as US Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh, for the Bangladesh Progressive Alliance of North America and Amnesty International, in an event at Harvard entitled “Implications on Human Rights and Democracy in the Age of Targeting of Media and Journalists.” My remarks touched more broadly on the fate of global journalists in a world now debased even more by the rise of Trumpian fake news, and on the avenues available to us to combat this.

This event was co-sponsored by Harvard’s undergraduate International Relations Council, whom I advise, and introduced by its President, Eliza Rebellion Ennis.

I had met Jamal Khashoggi at events organized by the Human Rights Foundation, the last being at 2018’s Oslo Freedom Forum, where I sat in on a late night conversation on an effort to increase the impact the Arab Tyrant Manual, an “independent online publishing platform focused on freedom, human rights and the fight against all forms of authoritarianism globally.”

That our government seeks to avoid really confronting the atrocity of his murder hurts in a more personal way than anything Trump has done heretofore.

The continued imprisonment of Shahidul Alam, with whom I serve on the Advisory Board of VII Photo Foundation, is now seemingly totally lost and obscured in the news cycle here. In a Dhaka jail since his abduction in early August, he has repeatedly been denied bail by the High Court, and continues to be slandered as a “traitor” by Bangladesh’s ruling party.

Shahidul Alam Denied Bail

Shahidul Alam is still being held in Dhaka Central Jail after his bail plea was denied by the Dhaka Metropolitan Session Judge’s Court. His bail petition had been repeatedly deferred by the High Court of Bangladesh for nearly a month, and and an order to grant him status as “Division 1 Under Trial Prisoner,” filed on August 27th, was implemented only yesterday.

We are in contact with his lawyer, Sara Hossain, to learn of what we can do to help his situation from afar. We are also receiving regular updates on his situation.

Shahidul Alam arrested

Shahidul Alam, the world renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist and founder of Drik Picture Library, who sits with me on the Board of the VII Foundation, has been arrested in Bangladesh, charged with violating a draconian defamation law, after speaking out against the government's crackdown on student protests.

I have reached out to my community of human rights activists and organizations, in hopes that we can develop ideas, and find access and influence where feasible, to assist Shahidul.

Here are the responses I have received: 

- Ken Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, has indicated that HRW is involved in the case. Here is HRW's statement.

- The Human Rights Foundation will be reaching out to Shahidul's family for consent to submit a complaint on his behalf to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

- Irwin Cotler, the Founding Chair of the Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, indicates that they will work closely with the Human Rights Foundation's initiatives, and will alert the Global Affairs Ministry Canada so that Bangladesh knows that it cannot conduct itself with impunity.*

- Alberto Mora is the Associate Director of Global Programs for the American Bar Association's, and will place this on their list of action items.

- Josh Rubenstein, formerly the Executive Director of AI New England, has advised us to reach out to our Congress representatives to encourage the State Department to speak out on Shahidul's behalf.

- Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen made the following public statement:

Freedom of expression, including through photojournalism, is extremely important for democracy. We have good reason to admire the work that Shahidul Alam has been doing with great skill and courage for many years. His work should receive praise and appreciation, rather than being ground for harsh treatment.

VII Annual Board Meeting

I attended the AGM of the VII Foundation's Board last week, held in part in Harvard's prestigious Porcellian Club. I have joined the Board's Mission, Education, and Projects sub-committees.

I had the pleasure to meet, among others, Kiku Adatto, Ted Nelson, and Shahidul Alam.

I hosted Shahidul, an eminent Bangladeshi photographer, at my home for the weekend, and have introduced him to George Mathew of Music Life International, for whom I am a Strategic Advisor. I hope for Shahidul and George to collaborate on an effort to bring attention to the Rohingya situation through both a photo-documentary exhibition and benefit concert at Carnegie Hall.

Ted is an expert in branding strategy who is interested in helping us develop language for The Trebuchet. His admonition to VII was not to try to "juggle a hundred ping pong balls" - better to catch just one. My vision for The Trebuchet is admittedly the opposite, but can certainly benefit greatly from Ted's disciplining and hard-nosed insights.

Kiku is a sociologist and Scholar in Residence at Harvard's Mahindra Humanities Center, and the wife of Michael Sandel. We have begun a warm friendship, and she has invited me into the Mahindra Center’s evening dialogues that she convenes with Michael.