Professional Experience:
Twenty-two years experience documenting poverty, natural disasters, community development,human rights,human trafficking, refugees/border conflicts, women-child issues, street children, and community health, through photos, writing, video,media training and advocacy.
Habitat for Humanity Asia-Pacific
Disaster response coverage: India (Gujarat earthquake 2001), Tsunami 2004 (Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Indonesia, China earthquake, 2008, Bangladesh cyclone/floods, 2007, Japan tsunami 2011, Thailand floods, 2011, Philippines typhoon, 2012
Key role: To provide documentation through stories, photos and video to be used for disaster response appeals to donors, media presentations, social media outlets, and advocacy.
Assisted in conducting Communications training workshops in disaster response. How to respond to disasters in emergency situations from day one, through preparedness strategy, harnessing media stories for donation purposes and fund raising appeals. How to use photography, video and personal accounts to tell the story.
Habitat for Humanity Asia-Pacific
Documentation of poverty communities and Habitat’s assistance to providing new housing to families in need of decent and affordable housing.
Key role: To provide in depth stories on families living in sub-standard housing, facing extreme health issues. Material used for fund raising and donor appeals for project funding, to fund housing for families living in extreme poverty.
World Vision Asia-Pacific
Community based projects in SE Asia region and project support through use of media to highlight WV impact on families in rural regions, through education,, health, agriculture, income generation projects.
Key role: Documentation of programs and the overall affect on community development, education, health and livelihood projects.
In addition co-wrote a book with Ngo Kim Cuc on street children in Vietnam, entitled “Children of the Dust (1996). Stories/photos on the lives of children living and working on the streets and the programs that helped them through education and drop in shelters.
During this time have traveled and worked in 22 countries throughout SE Asia and South Asia. Key responsibilities include visual documentation through photography, writing and video, for web stories, newspapers, magazine articles, social media, and fund raising.
Freelance photo assignments: United Nations( refugees affected by war 1997-8), CARE (community projects in Vietnam 2006), Getty Images, USA, (news and commercial use 1999-2012) Gamma Liaison, USA, Europe, (News and commercial use1993-98), Animal Planet (Tiger temple, Thailand 2004) United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR, 1990-93), Handicap International (affects of war in Cambodia 1992-3), International Organization for Migration, (TB projects in Thailand 2013), Newsweek Magazine, (Survivors of Khmer Rouge years, 2001).