Embracing the knife

JUST HOW DO YOU PUT UP A three-week long photo exhibition on male circumcision in a community that traditionally does not practise it without offending their sensibilities?

That’s exactly what six Kenyan photojournalists will do starting this Tuesday at the Alliance Francaise. Their goal? To encourage greater debate on the issue and highlight the success achieved so far in rolling out the procedure in Nyanza Province, western Kenyan.

The photographs on show at the exhibition and in The Kindest Cut, the book version, were taken over a period of one week in Suba district of Nyanza Province. The district, which includes some islands in Lake Victoria, is one of the regions hardest-hit by HIV/Aids in Kenya.

“This project shows a boldness thatcelebrates the ongoing success of the circumcision programme in Nyanza following successful community mobilisation and the support given by local leaders, including Prime Minister Raila Odinga,” said Ida Jooste, the country director of Internews, the media consultancy thatco-ordinated the journalists’ work and trained them in basic photography.

In attempting to tackle such a sensitive subject, Ms Jooste said, the journalists had from the very beginning to be aware that circumcision as part of HIV/Aids prevention is not only merely a surgical procedure but also a transitional event that empowers the individual and acts as a bridge between past and future cultural practices.

The photojournalists whose work will feature in the exhibition are Ernest Waititu, Isaiah Esipisu, David Njagi, Eric Otieno, Venter Mwongera and Wanjiru Macharia. All write for various media, print and online platforms, but until their training by Internews, had no training in photojournalism.

THEIR PICTURES WERE TAKen at the Sango Rota Health Centre, a mobile voluntary male circumcision clinic run jointly by several organisations involved in HIV/Aids work including the Universities of Nairobi and Manitoba, Family Health International (FHI) and the Nyanza Reproductive Health Services (NRHS) as well as the surrounding community.

“The pictures celebrate the success of the circumcision campaign, and yet confront the uncertainties of change,” said Ms Jooste. “They actually tell three good news stories in one: good science, proactive authorities and a culture that is dynamic.”

According to Dolphine Emali, Internews still and TV photography trainer, the timing of the circumcision photo exhibition is not fortuitous.

It comes exactly a year after Kenya launched a campaign to promote the procedure as part of efforts to curb the spread of HIV/Aids.

Today, UNAids says, the country’s programme is the most successful on the continent, with at least 30,000 men in upper Nyanza, which traditionally does not circumcise, going under the knife.

Asked why he thought that the circumcision campaign in the province had been so successful, Dishan Gogi, whose official title is Suba District Male Circumcision Project Co-ordinator, had an easy answer.

“Fear of illness is a motivator,” he said. “On some of the islands in Lake Victoria, HIV prevalence is 26 per cent and higher among adults. People have seen that HIV means business.”

This communal awareness helped the six “rookie” photojournalists connect with their subjects, said Ms Emali, and the project had few challenges as far as the host community was concerned.

But the journalists still had to be careful to follow ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from those being photographed, she added.