blog post #11: Statement of Purpose

The photo I have chosen is from the Compose Design Advocate website under ‘through the eyes of children’. The photographer must have been thinking about many things when taking it. He had to think of much of the same strategies that we, as the viewers are trying to decipher now.

As a writer there are many things I must do to accomplish a concrete statement of purpose. First, I will need to take into consideration the reason or more clear-cut purpose for my writing. I also need to think of things such as what is good and what is bad that can come out of my statement of purpose. There are a lot of responsibilities one has to their audience, and I also must consider the context and state of mind someone might be in when reading my piece. I want to make my essay as debatable as possible since the photographer didn’t give me much information about the picture to work with. Considering my statement of purpose, I think it must be highly debatable and I will make sure to state that there are numerous objections one can view from my picture.

This essay is going be posted on the Internet, and I understand that my audience could possibly be an exceedingly large amount of people, as anyone with Internet access could potentially become just a fraction of my audience. These people that view my blog are called a secondary audience. Along with any persons with internet access my main readers will be my fellow classmates and teachers. This is known as the primary audience. Since my classmates are also creating comparable analyses, I hope to present some new ideas or feedback that will help shape their minds with different thoughts. I would also like my audience to really think about what is happening within the photo and my essay, and realize some of the problems that many people still face in the world today.

The context in which the audience will be reading this will not be a typical essay style piece, but slightly different in it being on a blog. Since it will be in a blog which is on the Internet, the context is not quite as formal is it would be if it was a paper that was handwritten, so for most of the readers it will be in a laid back situation that the majority of people will just come across from browsing the internet. This means that the time and place the picture is viewed could make someone feel differently about it. So, I hope that my thoughts and ideas will be distinctive and interesting. In doing this I hope that my essay sticks out in the reader's brain as being interesting, exciting, and that they will think about it later.

With my photograph, I would like to use comparisons to take my paper to the next level. I want to look at what it was like in Rwanda in 1994 and what it has turned into today. It has been almost 20 years since the genocide has occurred and several things have changed. I also would like to give credit to Rosamond Halsey Carr who founded the Imbabazi Orphanage in 1994, and gave the photographer of my picture the chance to do what they now love and still be alive today.



By the end of this writing assignment one, I think I will have good grip on my statement of purpose. I completely understand all my responsibilities that I have to have for my audience. I understand things that can go wrong, and also all the benefits that people will get out of my statement of purpose.

blog post #10

Have you ever heard anything about the war in Rwanda in 1994? The war resulted in a massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in less than 100 days. The events occurred while the international community closed its eyes. Some of the most brutal and breathe taking things happened and most of the government did not even see the worst parts. And still today, ten years after the war took play the government is finally starting to realize that Rwanda is becoming stable. Maybe that has some thanks to Mrs. Rosamond Halsey Carr who gave children she found a place to live, the Imbabazi Orphanage.

In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Rosamond Carr, an American woman who had lived in Rwanda since 1949, converted her farm into a shelter for lost and orphaned children. It is called Imbabazi, which in Kinyarwanda means “a place where you will receive all the love and care a mother would give.”

Rosamond Halsey Carr founded the Imbabazi Orphanage in 1994. The Imbabazi Orphanage is home to over 120 children. Many of these children's families were killed during the 1994 Genocide, which they regularly refer to as "the war." Others died of disease when they fled to the Congo as refugees. The orphanage was originally founded in 1994 on Rosamond Carr's farm, Mugongo, in the hills of Mutura, next to the Congo border. Due to continual outbreaks of violent behavior, the orphanage moved to the petite lake town of Gisenyi. In late 2005, the orphanage moved back to Mugongo, into a new, lasting facility. Translated, Imbabazi means "A Mother's Love," and is one of the smallest numbers of homes where children are being raised without ethnic differences. Ever since it’s founding, the Orphanage was required to move from Mugongo in 1997 due to brutal insurgencies from the Congo. In the nearby lakeside settlement of Gisenyi, the Imbabazi Orphanage resided for 8 years, changing locations 4 times.

Rosamond Carr died on September 29, 2006, at the age of 94. The operations and management of the Imbabazi have been passed on to the Imbabazi Foundation, which is dedicated to the continuation of her work and the safeguarding of her legacy.

The gallery I picked the picture through features photographs taken by 19 children of the Imbabazi Orphanage, beginning when the children were linking the ages of 8 and 17. The photos were taken with 35mm disposable cameras, and, as of 2005, digital cameras. The photographs have been printed to archival, exhibition standards.

Looking back at the picture, the boy looks no older than maybe ten. I can tell that he has been through hard yet rough years in his short lifetime. Maybe the picture is trying to portray that he wants a bigger and better life with joy and excitement. Or still maybe he doesn’t know what he wants and is just trying to figure out wants on the paper or maybe it is his homework. In general, there is an assortment of things that you can infer from just looking at this picture, but yet there are a lot of pieces missing that would clear up or make a precise story. But part of the enjoyment is that you can make it whatever you fancy when you aren't given all the info. What do you get when you look at this picture?


Work Cited
Mahagarara, Emmanuel. “Imbabazi Orphange” 2002. http://imbabazi.org/imbabazi-staff.php
BBC News. Country profile: Rwanda Wednesday, 22 April 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1070265.stm

blog post #9

When searching for a photograph to write about our primary project number one I wanted to find one that I could unite with and a topic that I knew somewhat about. After going through dozens of pictures I finally staggered across this one. This picture comes from the Compose Advocate Design website. Through the eyes of children is an advocacy organization and an adoption agency supporting and promoting the adjustment for the nation of Africa, specifically those living in Rwanda. From the gallery I searched through I learned a lot about the orphanage and the photographers.



The gallery I picked the picture through features photographs taken by 19 children of the Imbabazi Orphanage, beginning when the children were linking the ages of 8 and 17. The photos were taken with 35mm disposable cameras, and, as of 2005, digital cameras. The photographs have been printed to archival, exhibition standards.
Rosamond Halsey Carr founded the Imbabazi Orphanage in 1994. The Imbabazi Orphanage is home to over 120 children. Many of these children's families were killed during the 1994 Genocide, which they regularly refer to as "the war." Others died of disease when they fled to the Congo as refugees. The orphanage was originally founded in 1994 on Rosamond Carr's farm, Mugongo, in the hills of Mutura, next to the Congo border. Due to continual outbreaks of violent behavior, the orphanage moved to the petite lake town of Gisenyi. In late 2005, the orphanage moved back to Mugongo, into a new, lasting facility. Translated, Imbabazi means "A Mother's Love," and is one of the smallest numbers of homes where children are being raised without ethnic differences. Ever since it’s founding, the Orphanage was required to move from Mugongo in 1997 due to brutal insurgencies from the Congo. In the nearby lakeside settlement of Gisenyi, the Imbabazi Orphanage resided for 8 years, changing locations 4 times. In late 2005, Roz was able to travel the children back to Mugongo this time to a new, permanent location.

As stated from my last blog the “vectors of attention” is the boy’s face in the picture. A “vector of attention” is defined in the book as in all photographs the photographer directs your attentions by the way the people-or subjects- in the photograph are arranged. You can depict from the photograph many different things from his face. To some people he may look sad, depressed, anxiety, overwhelmed, deep in thought, or even curious. People’s perceptions and thoughts differ from one another, that is why there can be no precise answer to what the photographer (Twagira) was trying to tell us when taking the picture. In the picture the summary under the picture said the boy in the pictures name was Musa. You can tell through the window that it is cloudy and maybe daytime, so we could assume that Musa is already done with school for the day or maybe doesn’t go to school all day.

In general, there is an assortment of things that you can infer from just looking at this picture, but yet there are a lot of pieces missing that would clear up or make a precise story. But part of the enjoyment is that you can make it whatever you fancy when you aren't given all the info.