As a New Zealand humanitarian photographer and storyteller, I’ve had the immense privilege of having a front-row seat to the breathtaking beauty of motherhood around the globe. The strength and resilience of the women I meet never ceases to amaze me. What powerful stories they tell of the obstacles they’ve overcome and the way they fight for a better future for their children. From stories of tremendous hope and joy to deep trauma and unfathomable loss.
Here are three things I’ve learned from the mothers I photograph. Firstly, there’s no us and them, there’s only us. Before I started doing this kind of work I was tempted to imagine that mothers in developing countries who endured horrific things “on the news” were fundamentally different from me. Maybe, somehow, they just don’t feel things like I do. They’re “used to it”, numbed by the ubiquitous presence of suffering. Maybe they expect less, care less, hope for less, want less, or need less. But as I’ve come to know mums all over the world, and captured them and their children with my camera, I’ve come to see that as different as our cultures and contexts might be, the universal gifts and challenges of motherhood unite us. There’s really no difference in what we want for our children; only in what we can give them.
Secondly, why so fast? I don’t know if it’s because I move at the speed of a bat out of hell, but one of the main things I’ve learned about mums in the places I photograph, is that their pace of life is so much calmer than mine. I remember one mum in Uganda, called Kate, who told me, “Westerners seem to really rush with everything. They have a lot to do, and they feel like they have to get it done. For them everything is now, now. They keep time and for them it has to be exactly that time. I’ve heard that you have schedules for your children’s napping, and you get mad if the baby doesn’t follow it? We do what we do in a relaxed way. They’ll sleep when they sleep.”
Thirdly, simplicity with our kids is underrated. We live in a world that’s all about more toys, more gadgets, more after-school activities, more designer brands and more technology. But the mothers I’ve photographed have taught me by their example that a stick and a soccer ball made of plastic bags is more than enough to ignite a child’s imagination. They’ve also shown me that you don’t need to be in multiple after-school activities for your kids to hone what they’re good at.
Having personally lived and raised my children in Uganda for seven years, I’ve seen children with unbelievable talent playing drums on the bottom of buckets with no tutor in sight. I’ve seen aspiring weightlifters using yellow water jerry cans to practise lifting and 4-year-olds who can dance better than anyone I know.
One mum, Juliet, told me, “I’ve heard people in the West have an entire room for one child where they sleep all by themselves and only their things are in there.”
The sound of mothers and their babies filled the air as I sat in a rural doctor’s office in Senegal and photographed the sea of colour and life unfolding before me.
Annet gave birth at home, before jumping on a motorbike and giving birth a second time at a local hospital. Shortly after she arrived, she found out she would need a C-section to deliver her third baby. At 32 she had surprise triplets, Patience, Grace, and Samuel. “In our culture, twins are a blessing, but triplets are a curse. For me though, these children are a blessing.” Annet said.
Premature baby Robert was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania. Here he takes a moment to rest in his mother Charlotte’s arms. Giving birth is an achievement, let alone doing it for the fifth time, in a refugee camp, to a premature baby.
Juliette rests a moment while her husband Edward, says his first hello to their firstborn child, Christine, in a public hospital in Uganda. “I am so much in love with my daughter,” she told me. “Maybe it’s because she’s my firstborn? I love my husband too, but he annoys me, whereas she cannot annoy me.”
Olivier joined a women’s self-help savings group in her village in Uganda, starting with just 50c. With incredible determination and grit, today she pays for all five of her children’s school fees, has brought electricity to her home, laid a concrete floor, and put iron sheeting on her roof.
As a single mum raising her daughter, Faith, in a slum in Uganda, Rahuma proudly helps her put on her shoes for the first day of school.
If I had to sum it up, these mothers have taught me that my children lack for nothing — and maybe could do with less. As we approach Mother’s Day, let’s collectively take a moment to pay tribute to mothers both here in New Zealand and all around the globe.
Here’s to strong women everywhere. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.
Annet gave birth at home, before jumping on a motorbike and giving birth a second time at a local hospital. Shortly after she arrived, she found out she would need a C-section to deliver her third baby. At 32 she had surprise triplets, Patience, Grace, and Samuel. “In our culture, twins are a blessing, but triplets are a curse. For me though, these children are a blessing.” Annet said.
Juliette rests a moment while her husband Edward, says his first hello to their firstborn child, Christine, in a public hospital in Uganda. “I am so much in love with my daughter,” she told me. “Maybe it’s because she’s my firstborn? I love my husband too, but he annoys me, whereas she cannot annoy me.”
Olivier joined a women’s self-help savings group in her village in Uganda, starting with just 50c. With incredible determination and grit, today she pays for all five of her children’s school fees, has brought electricity to her home, laid a concrete floor, and put iron sheeting on her roof.
As a single mum raising her daughter, Faith, in a slum in Uganda, Rahuma proudly helps her put on her shoes for the first day of school.
Latashe, 65, sits outside her home where, because of the savings group she joined through Tearfund, she’s been able to install water in her house and now sell it to others. “God prepared things for me to do in advance and I am realising them through this business, as I’m now a grandma able to support three orphans, aged 5-12.” Shot for @Tearfund
South Sudan Border: For many people living on our planet, water is not a given, it’s a gift. And when you live in a refugee camp on the border of South Sudan and Uganda, a nice cold bath from your mama towards the end of the day is exactly what you feel like.
The sound of mothers and their babies filled the air as I sat in a rural doctor’s office in Senegal and took in the sea of colour and life unfolding before me.
Helen Manson has been doing an exhibition, photography and storytelling speaking tour across the North Island as part of Tearfund’s Celebration of Humanity Tour this May. The Auckland Event is in Greenlane this Thursday, May 18, at 7pm. For more info visit tearfund.org.nz