Bringing Burkina Faso Back to the Bay Area

By Anna Esquibel

Students who studied abroad in Burkina Faso will have an opportunity to show the Santa Clara community what life is like in the West African village.

The fall 2010 participants of the Reading West Africa program in Burkina Faso will host an art exhibit this Friday in order to visually represent their experiences to the Santa Clara community.

The students will display the photographs they took as part of their study abroad curriculum, as well as feature the children's picture books they created with their photos.

"We all did at least three books in French with the pictures we took," said Amanda Albertson. "The purpose is to promote French literacy in the community in a fun way that features the people in the community."

Santa Clara professors Michael Kevane, Leslie Gray and David Pace founded the "Reading West Africa" study abroad program in order to provide students with a combined immersion and study abroad experience.

As part of the program, students work with the organization Friends of African Village Libraries that is dedicated to promoting literacy rates and providing tools to educate people throughout Africa.

"In the villages, there was a feeling of people wanting to have genuine conversations with you and children running around all over the place," said Albertson. "It's a hard dynamic to explain and that's why we thought photos would be the easiest way to do this."

The photos taken by Albertson and Mark Melvin, another coordinator for the exhibit, have already been taken back to their villages by Pace, photography professor and program coordinator, when he returned to Burkina Faso in December.

The exhibit is a chance to now share the photos - and illustrate the program participants' experiences - with the Santa Clara community.

"We don't want people to think that they are exploiting anyone by putting on the exhibit," said Melvin. "We are just embracing their culture and our experience and want others to be able to experience this also."

Along with sharing the participants' experiences, Melvin's hope is that the exhibit will spread awareness about the study abroad program as an option for prospective students. 

Another purpose of the exhibit is to raise money for more books created through the Reading West Africa program to be published.

"We are going to have an option to make donations by giving out cards with the organization's information on it or by purchasing a book to be sent back to the libraries," said Melvin.

Melvin was also inspired by other students' efforts to take their experiences abroad and make a difference here at Santa Clara.

"I gained a whole new experience abroad, but I realized I can be doing something to take that next step and actually do something about it," said Melvin. "Since we are graduating this year and only have a little longer to use the great resources, I knew we had to do it now."
The exhibit is sponsored by the Community Affiliated Artists and Designers Club, which is dedicated to supporting the arts in the Santa Clara community. 

The exhibit will open tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. in the Wiegand Room in the Arts and Sciences Building.

Admission is free to all in attendance.

Contact Anna Esquibel at aesquibel@scu.edu or (408) 554-4852.