India:

Over the past two months I have documented the social and humanitarian issues around Thailand with stories covering the flooding of Bangkok, indigenous hill tribe culture, sex worker rights, refugee camps along the Thai/Myanmar border and Burmese land mine victims. I hope you enjoyed viewing them as much as I enjoyed bringing them to you! I would like to make a special thank you for everyone who has helped me along my way either through financial contributions or words of loving encouragement. I would also like to shout out to Jennie Roberson who has courageously volunteered many times to be an editor for my articles; taking away the shame of how terrible my spelling actually is!

I have now entered India and plan to bring passionate photographs to many of the issues surrounding the subcontinent. Future projects will include the lives of Tibetan refugees in exile, woman's liberation movements, child welfare, and societal poverty. As an independent photojournalist my work is funded through the support of others. If you are interested in supporting me but cannot do so through financial means you can still be of great assistance by sharing my work and webpage with all of your friends, family, co-workers, and associates. For those who have donated to me in the past, I am truly humbled and would greatly appreciate your continued support. For those of you who are interested in donating and helping me continue my work, you may do so through the donation button in the top right margin. No donation is too small and I cannot do the work that I do without you.

Stay tuned for future projects and help support independent humanitarian photojournalism!

Cheers & happy holidays,

K.M.L.

Man offering a fire blessing, Haridwar.

Mae La Refugee Camp

“Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious.” - Sun Tzu

I try to keep these words in mind as a humanitarian worker. It is always bitter for photojournalists to admit that they were unable to achieve a story and document a social issue because of the overpowering forces that be. But that is often the reality of my work; I cannot always gain access to a region in critical need of international awareness. In this case, I’m referring to my ability to enter and cover the Mae La refugee camp along the Thai/Myanmar border.

With 40,000 - 80,000 people calling the Mae La camp home, it has become the largest refugee camp in Thailand. The camp, with no running water or sewage system, seems to be an endless collection of hovels made from scavenged forest materials and crammed together as tightly as possible with some buildings actually touching each other. Thai military security around camp is very tight with outposts every 25-50 yards that adhere to a strict no journalist policy. Entry is usually only granted for teachers and medical workers with a lengthy bureaucratic application paperwork process that would take more time then I have available to me.

Being aware that I would not be granted entry I still decided, with the encouragement of a friend, to travel up to the camp to at least bear witness to the situation with my own eyes. Of course, once I reached the camp, a group of Burmese children ran up to the barbed wire fence curious to see the foreigner and I couldn’t help but take out my camera and start photographing. Before I could even get a correct ISO setting the military had already started moving towards me yelling to stop, but I figured it would take them a moment to cover the distance between us. For thirty seconds I didn’t stop shooting; photographing as fast as possible before the military physically stopped me from taking any more images.

Here are the few photographs that I was able to capture within those thirty seconds.

Child refugees against a barbed wire fence.

Children lined up along the camp boundary.

The largest refugee camp in Thailand.

Land Mine Victims at the Mae Tao Clinic

19 year old land mine victim

Burma/Myanmar is one of four countries (the others being Israel, Syria, & Libya) left in the world that still actively place land mines. The ICBL (International Campaign to Ban Landmines) reports that “landmines and explosive remnants of war caused 4,191 casualties in 2010, 5% more than in 2009... [though] the real figure could be nearer 6,000 casualties.” The total number of Burmese and Karen people becoming victims of these nefarious weapons of war are unknown. However, it is clear that dozens of seriously wounded individuals cross into Thailand each year to seek medical care at the Mae Tao Clinic on the border town of Mae Sot.

Karen refugee adjusts his dressing.

The Mae Tao Clinic provides free health care for Burmese refugees. Its multiple departments help administer treatment to land mine victims. Its services include intensive care, trauma, the main land mine ward, and a prosthetics department that creates artificial limbs to help victims reintegrate into society after healing.

I noticed a patient chart hanging in the prosthetics department, which showed that large majority of land mine survivors are men. It was explained to me by a clinic staff member that, due to the patriarchal societal structure in their tribal and rural communities, most women stay at home to cook, clean and care for the children, while the men go out into the fields to farm or into the forests for wood. These activities drastically increased their chances of being injured.

Land mine victim in the Intensive Care Unit.

Documenting the various land mine cases at the Mae Tao Clinic was a difficult story to work through: I was working with an incapacitating fever at the time, but there was also a palpable feeling of helplessness. It pained me to see that there was very little that I could do to ease their pain. All I could do was hold their hand, speak a few words in broken Karen or Burmese, and photograph their lives, stories, and suffering to share it with the world. The whole time I was at the clinic, I felt isolated and alone. I empathized deeply with the emotions expressed by the victims as they lay in bed: alone, without friends or family, unable to do anything to improve their situation.

However, while this unfortunate reality was true, I noticed one very remarkable act - the smallest act of compassion or awareness could dramatically alter the mental states of the patients. No, I could not fix the damages that have been done to each refugee, but in this time of personal crisis, I found a recognition from the victims: Someone (and a white American, at that) had left their comfort zone and traveled a very long distance to understand the experiences of a people that can be easily overlooked and forgotten. I could see that it had become clear to the patience that, in desperate moments, there are still people around the world who care about them. It noticeably reignited a sense of hope.

That, to me, is the purpose of activism. No one person will ever change the world - if you set out with that goal, you will surely fail. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King would have been nothing without the thousands of ordinary people supporting them, who showed individuals acts of non-compliance. It is those everyday acts of compassion and resistance - holding a hand, words of comfort, showing compassion and caring- that will actually make a difference and invoke a positive change in our world.

We are never truly alone when connected to our common humanity.

Open wound.