Spending my night shift tonight sending out a email asking for help gaining access to the border refugee camps in Thailand. Send out the email below to numerous online NGO type agencies. Doing this in the blind as I have no official contacts or connections. Doubt anything will come of it, but I have to try to to get access. These people are too important to be forgotten, their lives matter too much.
It is amazing how hard it can be to just want to help people. I just want to make photos and then donate them back to the NGO for fundraising, raising awareness of these forgotten people etc. I am not good at the business part of things, selling myself with the upper echelon snobby management types. Am more of a down to earth type of guy, who is better face to face with ordinary people. This will probably go no where but I got to try, I will see what happens.
Here is a sample of the email I am sending out. Different places get slightly different names, I change off OxFam to whatever organization I am writing:
It is amazing how hard it can be to just want to help people. I just want to make photos and then donate them back to the NGO for fundraising, raising awareness of these forgotten people etc. I am not good at the business part of things, selling myself with the upper echelon snobby management types. Am more of a down to earth type of guy, who is better face to face with ordinary people. This will probably go no where but I got to try, I will see what happens.
Here is a sample of the email I am sending out. Different places get slightly different names, I change off OxFam to whatever organization I am writing:
Social Documentary Photography
Hello. I am not sure I am in the right place. I am trying to get access to the refugee camps along the Thai/Burma border near Mae Sot Thailand (Mae La, Upien Mai). I want to do a series of photographic portraits using a large view camera of the residents. My plan is to photograph hundreds of residents in the various camps and then donate the pictures to Aid organizations like OxFam Thailand. I am hoping the photographs can be used in a positive way to help the people in the camps. My work is 100% voluntary, the photos would be given/donated back free of any charges.
Please advise on the best way to achieve and ID what would allow me in and out of the camp entrances. I have extensive knowledge of Thailand, can speak and write Thai fairly well and am currently learning Burmese. I would like to learn some of the Ethnic group languages but like Karen but cannot do that from Canada. I can forward a CV as needed as well as samples of previous social documentary photography work.
I have photographed along the border and in the Mae Sot area previously, the photos below are from 2013, see the attached photograph which were made just outside of Mae Sot. I will be in the Mae Sot area for 7 weeks starting at the end of October 2015.
Thanks very much ..............
Update* Got a couple of replies from folks, forwarding me to other agencies, probably sent more than 10 emails now. Feel like I'm swinging in the dark trying to hit a 100mph fastball. At least I am trying, never hurts to try. I have 7 weeks to shoot in the Mae Sot area, if I could get access to the camps I would probably spend most of that time photographing there, everyday for 10 plus hours a day. I would also probably go back to continue the work on my next 5 week trip. Trouble is, how to get access? How to get someone to trust you enough to let you in?
