Rural children learn photography

Students of a Hope School take photographs with skills they have learned from Canon volunteers. Canon China is carrying out the "Image Exchange" initiative to encourage rural students to take pictures to record their lives and exchange photographs with urban children in China and other Asian nations. File Photo

One picture is worth 1,000 words, and Japanese camera maker Canon has helped more than 1,000 Chinese schoolchildren learn to capture pictures with photographs.

Teachers from 33 Hope Schools received a three-day training course in Shanghai earlier this month from professional photographers to show more students how to use cameras in Hubei and Hebei provinces and Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

Hope Schools were built by Project Hope, a national philanthropic project initiated by the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF).

The foundation raises money to build primary schools in China's poverty-stricken rural areas.

"As a company focusing on imaging technologies, we're always thinking about how to integrate our corporate mission with our public welfare efforts," said Hishahiro Minokawa, vice president of Canon China.

"This project will provide a good example of our philosophy of supporting the public welfare with imaging from Canon," he said.

The training course is part of a three-year program begun by Canon and CYDF.

Students from 100 Hope Schools will take their own photographs of their daily lives and participate in the "Image Exchange" initiative launched by Canon.

"Image Exchange" encourages students from various areas to exchange photos they take to become familiar with the lives of others and different parts of China.

Canon launched the initiative last December, encouraging students at nine Canon-sponsored rural Hope Schools to take and exchange photos with students in urban schools.

Company officials said the photographs will help them learn more about each other, and added that photography helps children's focus their attention and improve their visual and memory skills.

Participating students have submitted more than 100 picture albums.

By the end of July, 200 volunteers from Canon visited the nine Hope Schools, teaching more than 1,000 students and 50 teachers how to use cameras and take creative photographs.

"I've visited these schools many times, and each time I can feel the kids' eagerness about the photographic knowledge and the outside world," said Lu Jie, a Canon China public relations officer.

She told China Business Weekly that, as the first phase was so successful, the Japan-headquartered company dediced to enlarge the scale of the program and has expanded it from nine Canon Hope School to 100 ones, with the teachers training course this month as a start.

The "Image Exchange" component also will enable rural Chinese children to exchange photos and ideas with students from Japan and other Asian countries, she said.

Jiang Qiquan, a teacher at Banbishan Hope School in Xinglong county in Hebei province, told China Business Weekly that with Canon's help, there is enough equipment to allow all 158 students at his school to attend a photography class each week.

"Students at my school can capture the images through their own eyes, and make it into an album to exchange with students around Asia. They all like taking pictures so much," said Jiang.

CYDF said that Canon's "Image Exchange" program provides a valuable addition to traditional donations of money and materials.

It was photography that has helped promote the cause of Project Hope, which was founded in 1989.

In April 1992, photographer Xie Hailong touched the hearts of his audiences with Project Hope, a 40-piece collection on the school project.

One of his works, entitled "I desire to go to school", has become the symbol of Project Hope, which has helped more than 3.4 million low-income students through the start of 15,000 Hope Schools nationwide over the past 20 years.

"Pictures can record history, and actually ignited the revolution in China's public welfare sector," Yang Ziaoyu, executive vice president of CYDF, said.

So far, Project Hope has attracted domestic and foreign enterprises, such as Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Samsung, Nokia,and Air China, as sponsors.

They have contributed 5.4 billion yuan to the charity foundation.

(China Daily 08/31/2009 page8)