Shooting Kabul workshop.

Workshop outing to photography in a ruined palace.

Shooting in the ruined palace

Ruins and the sky

I wanted to show in my picture how this building used to be beautiful but now it is destroyed. I liked going on this trip to see these ruins because it is important I see how my country is now and how it once was. In the future I hope this building will be beautiful once more. (c) Zakia / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

Making decorations at Aschiana

These children are making flowers to sell on the street. These kinds of decorations are traditional in Afghanistan, people will use them to decorate their houses and also brides will use them. During Eid we also decorate our house. This year Eid was very different to last year because the Taliban are gone. Last year I did not understand what a holiday meant because everyday I had to be in the house but this year we were dismissed from school and Aschiana – now I understand what a holiday means. Before I was not at school so everyday was like a holiday because we could not work or study, we had to stay inside. It felt good to have a holiday. I used to get bored always staying at home. There was nothing to do each day except when we could work on the streets. (c) Rabia / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

On the bus (c) Sakina / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

I do not want to wear a burqa. I will wear hajab (a head scarf) because that is what it says in Islam. It is important for women not to be seen by other men apart form their husbands – this is what is said by Islam. Women have to do exactly the same as men, the same amount of work, but they are not treated the same. (words by Khatera)

Jumper

This jumper is very beautiful. I would like it. My favourite colours are yellow, black, purple and red. Now I have no clothes that I like. One day maybe I could have these kinds of clothes, but my future is not clear. They are expensive to buy and I do not have money for bread or to buy food so it is not possible. We cannot buy such things. I have been going to school since the start of this year. My mother at first did not want me to go to school because I did not have good clothes and good books, no socks and no shoes, but I wanted to go. Now I am in class 4 and I can read and write a little. I enjoy it - when I started at school for the first time I found it hard but I went straight into class 3 as I am a older and I did not want to study with all the small children. (c) Sakina / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

Bath

Some years ago people had baths there and maybe in years to come they will again. We do not have a bath, we wash from a bucket with water we bring from a tap outside. Only rich people have baths. I think rich people used to live in this building. I was happy to visit there because it was once the place of rich people and poor people could never go and see and I could not have gone there. I hope this building is cleaned and made new again. (c) Mahbooba / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

I do not remember taking this picture but I think the hand is pointing at the ruins we were going to take pictures of. This house before was beautiful. When Taliban came they would think that maybe there were soldiers hiding in the buildings so they would bomb them and turn the buildings into ruins and there was no soldiers there. I hope peace will last a long time now. Peace is the most important thing to the children of Afghanistan. (c) Khatol / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

This building was destroyed during the fights. Now I am interested in politics because there is peace, during war I was not interested. I like the framing in this picture but not the place because of its destruction. Many years ago there was peace in Afghanistan, children did not need to work on the streets and they were able to study. Children did not lose their mothers and fathers. I cannot remember a peaceful time but my mother tells us stories about how Afghanistan used to be - people used to have a good life and all they could eat. (c) Anayta / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

The warnings are painted on the walls to tell people to take care of mines. This is good as it means people can live more safely. My neighbour used to collect steel and he thought a mine was steel he could recycle and took it. He now cannot walk – he has lost a foot and a hand. His sister comes here to Aschiana. The landmines are found in many places outside. Small children are taught what the different mines look like so they know not to touch them. Sometimes they are hidden. Before they used to be near our houses but now they have been cleared. Many children were injured as they used to play in mined areas. (c) Nabiela / Shooting Kabul / PhotoVoice

Shooting at the ruined palace

SHOOTING KABUL

"I know nothing about peace. Since I have been aware of who I am there has been fighting. We can show people in our pictures that war is very bad because we lost our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, hands, legs, arms, heads - everything. Peace is the most important thing.”

Sakina, 14 years

Shooting Kabul took place towards the end of 2002 when Afghanistan was just emerging from Taliban rule. At that time there were over 37, 000 children working and begging on the streets of Kabul, almost a quarter of them young girls. Many of these children were the primary breadwinners for families stripped of their homes, jobs or health over decades of fighting.

I co-managed the project and faciliated the workshops which involved 14 girls aged between 10 -14 years who took to the streets of Kabul, not to scavenge and hawk but armed with automatic cameras. Through their images they talked about their views on peace and reconstruction, women and working children’s rights and education. Their work was first exhibited in Kabul and went on to show in other parts of the world, in the US, UK and Europe.

Shooting Kabul was a PhotoVoice project run in partnership with Aschiana and funded on voluntary donations.

A photo booklet from the project can be downloaded here.

‘What I learnt from perhaps my most well-known photo 'Afghan girl' is that people are increasingly interested in the context of images, of the life behind the face as it were. I went in search of Sharbat Gula again because so many people asked me who she was, what she did and whether she survived. After seeing the work from the 'Bibin' project in Afghanistan I realised the images and writing from PhotoVoice projects intrinsically provide this intimacy and understanding. Through PhotoVoice projects people like Sharbat Gula are given the vital opportunity to tell their stories for themselves.’

Steve McCurry, National Geographic and Magnum photographer

Shooting KAbul

SHOOTING KABUL