Youth of gold

Biology student Jessica Roy spent her summer in Peru on a volunteer placement. (Photo courtesy of Jessica Roy)

In the Oscar-winning documentary Born into Brothels, New York-photographer Zana Briski gives children whose mothers work as prostitutes in Calcutta’s red light district their own cameras and teaches them to look at their world in new and startling ways.

Inspired by the film, third-year biology student Jessica Roy packed some disposable cameras in her suitcase when she left this summer for a two-month volunteer stint in Chocco, a mountain village near Cusco in Peru.

“This is my way of taking back my experience from Peru,” says Ms. Roy, 20, from Canning, N.S. “Hopefully, it will inspire other people to volunteer, or in a small way, they’ll start to be more aware of all we have in Canada.”

She is staging an exhibition—entitled “Qoriwaynacunas” or “Youth of Gold”— of the young people’s photos on November 29 and 30 in the atrium of the Rowe Management Building. The show includes photos by Ingrid Eliva Meza Llavilla, Heber Ilavilla Joyas, Nilo Ecorimanya Alvarez, Juana Maria Rau Rau Huayllino, Percy Raurau Huoyllino, Jose Antonio, Ttupa Uscamayta, Kattie Prada Mendoza, Viviana Soler and Veronica Tupa.

SEE PHOTOS: Picture perfect

As in Born into Brothels, Ms. Roy distributed the cameras to young people, aged 14 to 21, in the village. She gave them a list of 27 things she wanted them to photograph: tangible things like their house, their feet, and family, as well as more abstract concepts, such as love, sadness and kindness.

What they came back with surprised and delighted her: “it’s really a rare view into how they live their lives.”

While still in Peru, Ms. Roy had the photos developed and presented in albums. “That was wonderful. They saw their pictures blown up like that and it made them feel so proud. It was incredibly moving.”

Donations at photography exhibition will be gratefully accepted. (The suggested donation is $5.) Ms. Roy says money raised will go back to Chocco to fund projects, for example, providing electricity for the kindergarten class, that the youth themselves decide upon. “When the lights go on, they’ll know they’re the ones responsible.”

 Ms. Roy would like to express her appreciation to Atlantic Photo Supply, the Department of International Development Studies, Department of Spanish and Prof. John Cameron for their support and encouragement of her project.