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Amazon gallery show up

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

Amazon show “Amazon: A Fragile Balance” is on exhibition at Ock Hee’s Gallery in upstate New York, in Honeoye Falls.The show includes images from my time living with colonists in the Brazilian Amazon who had a plague of mosquitoes on their land and were protesting for help in a roadside, makeshift camp (1991) and my time helping researchers in Peru, trekking in the forest, catching caimans to see what they had for lunch and launching health care and wildlife management programs in remote communities.Images explore the culture, the beauty of the forest and the wild of one of the few places left where nature, not man, is in control. It compels us to explore man’s struggle to co-exist with nature and what impact we have on the environment, and what can be lost.Several images feature communities that are recipients of the work The Friends Project does, including the Amazon Animal Orphanage (care for a baby howler monkey), Nueva Esperanza (window screens, a latrine, safe drinking-water program, shoes for kids) and Belén (school supplies).I’ll post some photos later of the images.

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Welcome to The Friends Project – Wanderlust and good deeds on the road.

Tuesday, June 6th, 2006

Nueva Esperanza kids
The Friends Project was created in spring 2006 by me, Kris Dreessen. I have been traveling for about 20 years now, usually solo and on a shoestring budget, and living abroad. I have always gotten so much from traveling and living in other cultures. Inspired by Backpack Nation and the 100 Friends Project, I started my own project as a way to give back.

The Friends Project is a simple name for a simple idea: When I travel, my friends and I collect money. When I go, I find new homes for the donations where it can really make a difference.

In America, 50 bucks means dinner for two. In other places it can mean a food cart to start a business or treatment of malaria.

As a journalist and photographer, I believe I can share my experiences and promote understanding. I may travel alone, but I can bring others along on the journey through my work.

I spent three weeks in the Peruvian Amazon last April. I took $460 with me. It doesn’t seem so much, but with it we were able to: outfit 48 kids in the Belen area of Iquitos with school supplies, provide medical and other care for a baby howler monkey whose mother was killed and provide for installation of screens on all the houses in a remote community on the Yavari River that has serious malaria problems.

The idea is to spread the word, share some tales of the road, and expand this “friends” group. Maybe others will create their own projects.

This blog is a place where The Friends Project can “live.” I’ll be updating it first with where the first round of donations went, and then with tales from the road and photos and interesting links, so visit often. Feel free to comment and talk with each other. Soon, you can visit my journalism Web site (see link for Lens and Pens at right) to see more photos and stories about the places I travel, and where we’ve donated money, that aren’t directly related to The Friends Project.

-Kris

Cappuchin

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