Photo Camp Helps Refugee Teens Tell Their Stories

It's been a long, strange voyage for 15-year-old Thuam Kehn Mung, from his home halfway around the world in Burma to the 11th grade at Lansdowne High School in a suburb outside of Baltimore, where his family settled in 2010.

Now known by his friends as Tony, Mung was one of 17 refugee children from Burma and Eritrea who recently participated in a four-day National Geographic Photo Camp, in which professional photographers--including some of note who contribute to National Geographic and other publications--mentored them on how to use the tools of photojournalism for self-expression.

"They are new to this country, and have varying degrees of difficulty telling their story," said lead instructor Piper Watson of Annapolis-based Vision Workshops, which conducts photo camps for National Geographic.

Photography is "a great way to get them comfortable telling their story," she said.

The teens in the photo camp have been in the U.S. for six months to two years, according to Vision Workshops executive director Kirsten Elstner

They have experienced dramatic change in their lives--uprooted from their homes, the cultural shock of leaving a simpler lifestyle and being immersed in suburban America, not speaking the language, and in many cases under circumstances that they were not old enough to understand.

"Some have gone from Burma to Malaysia to Thailand to the U.S.," she said.

The National Geographic Photo Camp was done in partnership with the Baltimore City Community College'ss Refugee Youth Project, The Crane Family Foundation and The Shriver Center at UMBC.

UMBC's Department of Visual Arts provided studio and classroom space for the photo camp, as well as a graduate student to serve as an assistant.

Olympus donated 50 digital cameras for the program, which travels the country conducting photo camps, according to instructor Jay Kinghorn, of Salt Lake City.

Among the photographers who participated in the photo camp was Kitra Cahana, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times and other prominent publications, and Amy Toensing, who has contributed to National Geographic, the New York Times, Newsweek and Time.

Many of the teens had never held a camera before.

"This was my first time," said Mung.

Over the four days of the photo camp, instructors showed the kids photojournalism basics--how to use the camera and compose an image.

"You could see a tremendous difference between the first day and the last," Kinghorn said.

On June 18, the photo camp participants, instructors and photographers invited from the community gathered in an auditorium of UMBC's Information Technology/Engineering building to pass out certificates and watch a seven-minute video of their work.

And then they watched it again.