Rupa Nepal is a project born from the desire to learn and share the gaze ('Rupa' in Nepali) of a group of children and young orphans of Nepal.
We understand education and art as powerful tools of social transformation. From this place we will provide our expertise and motivation in the areas we know best: photography and drawing. We want to help them better express the reality they live in and convince them of the value of their gaze.
We will provide photographic cameras and drawing materials to help them shape their own personal projects. With all the works of the children we will make a book, a website and an exhibition.
This project is possible thanks to your help and the Spanish-Nepalese organization 'Growing in Nepal', which works in finding resources for providing the basic educational needs for this group of children. The full revenue obtained from the sale of the book will be used to continue supporting their education.
Description of the project. Main features, strengths and differentials.
This project begins with a campaign to collect digital cameras for the children to be used during the workshop. They will keep the cameras for their future work.
Once in Kathmandu, we will get used to their way of life and we will motivate them to understand the opportunity that they have to express their reality and share it with the World. We will alternate drawing and photography lessons, encouraging them to express themselves freely and to choose a topic that is important to each of them. We will give them exercises, techniques and tools, but mostly we will listen to them, and play with them, with the cameras and the pencils. We will follow the evolution of each individual child and we will meet weekly to watch and comment on their work all together. We will also help them to write a short text accompanying the images. In the last week we will select and edit their work.
Along with the personal projects of the children, we will include our own pictures and drawings about the experience both in the book and in the web. The full revenue from selling the book will be used to assure the education of the children through 'Growing in Nepal'. The book will be published in English and Spanish under a Creative Commons license so that everybody will have access to watch it and download it from anywhere in the World.
The first exhibition will be hosted in Barcelona. In the opening, we will speak about our experience and chat with Karma Tenpa (co-founder of 'Growing in Nepal'). We will also take the opportunity to meet and give you your rewards.
Why this is important
The idea of Rupa Nepal started two years ago, when David met Karma Tenpa, co-founder of 'Growing in Nepal ', during a stay in the Buddhist community Dag Shang Kagyu (Huesca, Spain). Moved by the desire to provide his expertise in social photography workshops, he started collaboratig with Karma Tenpa and Nagwang Thinley, a tibetan doctor who help these children day by day in Kathmandu.
A year later Sonia joined the project, bringing his experience in drawing workshops and multicultural integration projects. The four of us have shaped this idea with great enthusiasm.
Goals of the crowdfunding campaign
What we want to achieve is :
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Launch a campaign to collect digital cameras.
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Encourage and assist in the creative process to twelve young Nepalese with difficult access to education. We want to help them become aware of the enormous power of their gaze and to give them the necessary space and tools to make their stories come to light (what they think, what they feel, what worries them, what scares them, what motivates them, what strengthens them...).
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Share with the community the gaze of these children (by the book, the exhibition and the web) to jointly nurture cultural exchange and become aware of their reality.
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Contribute to cover their educational needs through the sale of the book.
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Leave an established operational dynamics so that children who wish to further develop their artistic potential may have a support in their city.
Team and experience
David del Campo (Madrid, 1979) is a photographer and lecturer of Aerospace Engineering at the Technical University of Catalonia. He has experience in the use of documentary photography as a means of awareness (Madrid Female Migrant project, madridmujermigrante.org). He has taken courses about Solidarity Photography in which received first-hand training from photographers who had already driven experiences similar to Rupa Nepal. He was the project coordinator of "Desvincularte" which consisted of a workshop of documentary photography addressed to a group of minors who are no longer part of armed groups in Colombia. These projects were presented both in Colombia and in Barcelona and can be viewed in the web daviddelcampo.wix.com/desvincul-arte.
Sonia Esplugas (Barcelona , 1977) is an illustrator and an artist. Her background is eclectic and in good part self-taught. She nourished from disciplines such as drawing, photography, theater and body work. As an illustrator she has published thirty books, and she has participated in collective exhibitions in several countries. For 8 years she has been teaching workshops of illustration, drawing and creativity, alone and in collaboration with other artists. The approach of her workshops is playful, intuitive and open to the entire community, from the conviction that we are all artists and we have much to express (dibujoautentico.blogspot.com). In 2011 she participated in the cooperation project Our Wisdom (nuestrasabiduria.com), supported by the AECID ( Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development), designed to protect the wealth of languages and vision of indigenous peoples, building bridges with the Wichí communities in North-Western Argentina (www.soniaesplugas.com).
The Rupa Nepal project is framed within the work that the organization "Growing in Nepal" (creciendoennepal.org) is doing with this children. Its goal is to be present in the lives of these children and young people, helping them to grow in all that this implies, especially meeting all their basic and educational needs. It was founded by Karma Tenpa (Buddhist monk living in Spain) and Nagwang Thinley (Tibetan doctor living in Kathmandu), who support us in this project with great enthusiasm. Dr. Nagwang Thinley will help us in everything related to the workshops.