Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Wednesday, January 17, 2018, Northampton, MA
Weather: snowing, 27°


Welcome to The Baghdad Blog! Our visas arrived yesterday, just 3 days before we are scheduled to fly out from JFK.

On Saturday, January 20th, I will be traveling to Baghdad, Iraq with the organization Baghdad Resolve: An International Collaboration to Improve Cancer Care in Iraq. The project is designed to improve diagnosis, care and outcomes for pediatric cancer patients and to bring nurse's training and support to the Children’s Welfare Teaching Hospital in Medical City, Baghdad. I will be traveling with Claudia Lefko, creator and sustainer of this organization.

The goal for this trip is to create historical documentation of this remarkable hospital unit. Claudia and I will be staying in the hospital and will have full access to the health care community — doctors, nurses, patients, parents, support staff and others at the center. I will be taking photographs throughout the unit at all times of day and night, and will be putting together a photo-based narrative of the center and of those who benefit from its services.

Photo projects while in Baghdad:
Daily blog posts
Daily photo posting
Hard copies of daily photos hung publicly throughout the pediatric oncology unit
Documentary project following nurses
Portraits in the unit of as many people I can convince to spare a few minutes for photo taking
Amassing a portfolio of high quality images

A disclaimer; this is my first blog endeavor and I hope to have the discipline to write briefly about my experience and post photos at least every other day, if not more frequently.

Additional info can be found at: http://www.baghdadresolve.org/



Claudia and Dr. Mazin Al-Jadiry at Hampshire College, 2015





1 comment:

  1. Ellen, you are amazing. Right in the middle of all that suffering you are sure to bring a morsel of joy to those beautiful children.

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