Welcome! 2007-09-14 It is great that you visit our website. In the next few months I will keep you informed about the project Similarities; connecting children from Amsteram, The Netherlands with children from Takoradi, Ghana.. The last four years I travelled a lot and worked on photodocumentaries involving the exploitation of young children and women. Many sad stories. This year I decided to work on a more positive project. That’s why Nellie and I set up this wonderful project where I can teach children digital photography both in Holland and in Ghana and connect them with each other via the worldwideweb. | | In spring I first worked with the children of the Dorus Rijkersschool in Amsterdam. They all worked with lots of enthousiasm with a digital camera donated by my friends in Holland. Look at their introduction! At this moment their wonderful, inspiring photo’s are exhibited at their school. Soon I will show you the photo’s on this website. In October I will start in Ghana and with help from the center in Takoradi and the Dorus Rijkersschool we will make the connection! Photo’s and more news will follow soon. Do you have any comments, nice ideas, questions or would like to support us, please don’t hesitate to contact us! | | 
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My first lessons at the Takoradi Educational Resource Centre! 2007-10-13
Saturday the 13th I visited the centre for the first time to look around and meet the staff. The centre looks great with the ICT lab and a nice library. Twenty children were sitting with each other very silently reading their books. Upstairs in de ICT lab, twelve children had computer lessons. The children enjoy coming to the centre every day and also even on Saturdays. It was exciting to see their great eagerness to read books and learn everything about the computer. In one of the following days I arranged my classroom with help from Tommy (one of the staff). We set up two tables and 8 chairs (donated by Unicef) and a white board to write on. I got the digital camera’s ready for use and prepared the first lesson.
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Wednesday the 17th was my first lesson at the Centre. It was great to meet 8 enthousiastic children with twinkling eyes. It is very special for them that they had been choosen for this unique digital photography project. They had never taken pictures with a digital camera, but they all took pictures with a traditional one. I asked them what they liked to take pictures of. All of them gave me this special answer:
"I want to make pictures so I can show them to my children. I want to make pictures to remember my childhood". Their first assignment was to get acqainted with the camera and to make the first pictures from each other outside. The second lesson we discussed their first pictures.
This Monday we went in to the neighbourhood to make pictures of the centre and I hope we will be able to show them to you this week.
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Kids and their houses 2007-10-29 Eight hard working kids did really well on their first assignment. They all took photo’s of their house and family. You can see their photo’s on the photo gallery. This week I will show you their best friends with their stories why they are their best friends. | | A nice assignment about friendship. I also asked them what they like about Ghana and in special about Takoradi. Their answers will be written down and also transformed into photo’s. So we can learn a lot about their lives and thoughts about their country. This week I hope we will have connection with the kids in Amsterdam, sharing their photo’s and stories. | | 
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Exhibition in Ghana & Amsterdam 2007-10-30
Today no teaching but sorting things out, such as the stories of the children about friendship and their city Takoradi (Tadi) and starting to make arrangements for the exhibition next week in the centre. And I am already thinking of the publication in the Netherlands. Communication Agency ‘De Daad’ in Amsterdam offered to take care of making this publication special for To Be.
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Therefore I gather both stories and photos from the children in Takoradi and Amsterdam.
It is also a step to a combined exhibition in Amsterdam at the end of this year. We are still looking for a nice place to exhibit the children’s work, so if you have any good suggestion please let us know.
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www.dedaad.com
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Friendship 2007-11-01
Who is your best friend? And maybe you have more than one best friend. Make some nice pictures of your best friend and tell us who she or he is. Nice pictures and stories came back from my group. With love the children wrote about their best friend(s). They new a lot about them. Where they come from. How they precisely look like. What their favorite food is (they all like local food) and what games they like to play. The guys like football, the girls like ‘Ampe’ a game we don’t know in Amsterdam. (see picture*)
Read the story of Lynell. She has lots of friends, sharing their lives together in a very positive way, respecting eachother and all eager to learn hard to have a good future.
| | Isaac has a nice female friend who he said is an intelligent, good and kind girl and also likes praying. This assignment is not only nice for children to make, but you and I will like it too if our best friends would write such nice things about us. It is nice to tell your friend why she/he is your friend. It will definitely make your friendship much stronger.
* Ampe can be played by two or more players. The leader, or "it", and another player jump up at the same time, clap, and thrust one foot forward when they jump up. If the leader and the other player have the same foot forward the leader wins a point. If they are different then the other player become it and plays against other players. If only two players are playing, they keep score until a certain number of points determines a winner. | | 
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At the Market Circle in Takoradi 2007-11-07
One of the special things in Takoradi is the Market Circle, the ultimate centre of Takoradi. A big round building with little shops and inside a colourful market with lots of things to sell. When I asked the children what they like about Tadi (Takoradi) lots of them mentioned the market circle. Isabella said ‘I like Tadi because the way they visit their friends. I like Tadi because of the market. I like Tadi because traffic lights control the cars” and Emmanuel said ‘Tadi is a nice place where you can find many places like Melcom. U&4 shopping centre, my home supermarket and the market circle. And you can see the beaches. Tadi people are friendly and they like people who are calm and respectful’.
| | So we went with three children Emmanuel, Reagan en Gertrude to make photo’s at the market. Have a look at their wonderful photo’s because it was not easy!! People are not used to see four camera’s rushing through the market. ‘What are you going to do with the photo’s they asked’. Reagan did really well on asking permission and he made nice portraits. Emmanuel made lots of nice close ups of the merchandise on the market and Gertrude made good overviews. | | 
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