Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma
CENTER FOR SURVIVORS OF TORTURE AND WAR TRAMA
Training: July 7 - 30 and August 4 -11, 2008; St. Pius Church and Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma; Chinyere E. Oteh, Instructor
Exhibition SITE #1: PPRC Photography Project Gallery
November 4, 2008 - January 18, 2009
Exhibition SITE #2: MoKaBe's Coffeehouse
November 18 - December 30, 2008
Website: www.stlcenterforsurvivors.org
The Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma (CSTWT) was started in the early 1990s when St. Louis therapists began to see an increase in refugees suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In the summer of 2001, CSTWT formally initiated programs with an emphasis on providing appropriate mental health services, advocacy, and community education for these new Americans. CSTWT clients come from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Iraq, Somalia, Liberia, and other countries experiencing unrest. Located in South St. Louis, where much of St. Louis' international population resides, CSTWT also offers recreational programs and after-school tutoring for teens. The CSTWT Photography Project began with a boisterous group of teen-age boys from several countries. They were avid soccer players and wondered what a class in photography in the middle of the soccer season could offer them. By the end of the Project, they knew how to use digital cameras and how to take portraits and action shots. After looking at historic, self, and community portraits and taking a field trip to the St. Louis Art Museum to see Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks, we also made a trip to Tower Grove Park where they took photographs of each other amid the stonework, greenery and rays of the hot St. Louis sun. This Project provided an opportunity for the teens to express themselves in a new way, adding "artistic expression" to their already established finesse and enthusiasm for the world's most beloved sport...soccer! Their work, both visual and written, displays the great pride they hold for themselves as young men finding their way in the world and for the home countries that shaped them.
-- Chinyere E. Oteh, Photography Project, Instructor
Text by Participants:
Where I'm From
I am from the country that men and women dream of everyday.
I am from a country where a man would die for his family and country.
I am from a country where you get up and smile because of a beautiful day.
I am from a country of the best of the best soccer players and heroes.
I am from a country where you speak English and Swahili.
I am from a place where you can call home.
I am from a country where young men and women are taught how to respect and how to be strong.
I am from Kenya and always will be.
-- Dadiri Muya
PARTICIPANTS: Ages 12-16
Mohamed Abdi, Kenya
Morris Harry, Liberia
Joseph Jasper, Liberia
Hamadi Maalin, Kenya
Dadiri Muya, Kenya
Edwin Villalobos, Honduras
Niko Wah, Liberia
COMMUNITY PARTNERS:
Center for Survivors of Torture and War Trauma
MoKaBe's Coffeehouse, St. Louis