Congratulations to Greengrants donor Elizabeth Weinstein for her award-winning environmental justice photos! She and her family traveled with Global Greengrants Fund to southern Africa this summer to visit with our grantees and advisors. We spent two eye-opening weeks witnessing first-hand the realities of communities on the front lines of industry and environmental degradation in South Africa and Mozambique.
Elizabeth submitted a few of her photos from the trip to the Environmental Photography Exhibition at the 2010 Colorado Environmental Film Festival. She won several awards, including Best in Show for her photo of children playing in runoff water from nearby oil refineries in South Durban, South Africa (left).
Elizabeth sat down recently for a Foto-Talk interview with Ken Gunnufson to discuss the personal impact of her trip to southern Africa. You can watch the interview on the Foto-Talk YouTube channel or by clicking the photo below.
A few poignant excerpts from the interview, in Elizabeth’s words:
“When I was there, I was overwhelmed with the openness; the people there were so receptive and thankful that we had come to see what was going on. Just that alone was sort of a ‘bearing witness’ process to going in and getting closer to these things…smelling the air, feeling your eyes burn, feeling your throat burn. I feel like a little bit of my heart was left there.
“When I got home, I felt like ‘yeah, I give money, I give my support in that way, but I also have another medium, which is my photography, and I have something to say through it.’
“As a global citizen, as a person of the world, I feel completely connected to the pollution that’s going on in South Africa. That was very clear to me while I was there, that there is not a separation, at all, between any of us.”
Congrats, Elizabeth, and an enormous ‘thank you’ for all of your support of our grantees!