UN photo exhibit to benefit HIV/AIDS programmes in Africa
A child jumps to kick a ball. Two smiling young women with fake auburn and blonde braids in party dress pose unself-consciously. A well-dressed elderly man leans on the counter in his son's tidy shop. Such images of Africans at work, at play and practising their religions are the subjects in an exhibition that was opened today at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The exhibition is part of Olympus Corp.'s 2002 landmark exhibition, "A Day in the Life of Africa," shot by 100 photographers who fanned out across the continent to shoot pictures for just 24 hours.
At the opening of the exhibition, Olympus donated $33,000 from ticket sales at a recent showing of the images in Kobe, Japan, on behalf of the Japanese people.
The funds go towards a new UN Development Programme (UNDP) initiative, Africa 2015, mobilizing Africa's best-known cultural leaders and sports stars to promote "an AIDS-free generation by 2015." This would satisfy one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of September 2000 to reverse Africa's HIV/AIDS pandemic by 2015 in its poverty-elimination programme.
"Our involvement in A Day in the Life of Africa is about more than technology: it affords us the opportunity to make a contribution to the efforts of the African people in fighting and eventually eradicating the AIDS virus," said Masatoshi Kishimoto, chairman and chief executive officer of Olympus.
Olympus organized the exhibit in partnership with UNDP to focus attention on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October, and the UNDP Poverty Eradication Awards.
"For us who love Africa this exhibition is richly rewarding," Nane Annan, wife of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said in a statement. "We are reminded that the MDGs are far more than lofty words - they represent the difference between life and death for millions of people."
"The exhibit is a very fitting part of the United Nation's commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty through events this month in nearly 100 countries worldwide," said Ibrahim Gambari, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Africa.