My involvement and commitment to Mothers of Africa began in 2011, when founder Judith Hall asked me to help organize an art exhibition to launch a new initiative for the charity: ‘Go Zambia’. With the help of colleagues, the exhibition was mounted in a gallery in Cardiff Bay. The show included six drawings from children at the Shiyala community school and so a colleague, Adrian Shaw and I ran a number of workshops for local children in the Bay area. At the time I was Director of Media Resources at the University Hospital of Wales.

 

As a passionate professional photographer, with over 36 years experience, Judith saw the potential to document this new venture and I was invited to join the small scoping group that visited Zambia in 2012 and laid the foundations of what has followed in the subsequent six years. On that first visit we met some of the children who had drawn the artwork exhibited in Cardiff and we ran a small art workshop, mirroring the ones run in Cardiff.

Since then, (and since retirement) I have continued to photographically document the work of the charity, with the images appearing in articles in print and on-line, helping raise the profile of the charity. More recently I have started to record digital stories, through which the challenges these wonderful people face can be told in their own words. It has been my privilege to work with them, and I am eternally grateful that they have allowed me to see and share just a fraction of their lives.