A selection of photos from my continuing documentary work with the Italian NGO, L'Albero della Vita (ADV), here in West Bengal, India. They sponsor underprivileged children in many parts of West Bengal, ranging from Mirik in North Bengal to small centres in South 24 Parganas. The lives of these children get more difficult as they get older, many of them facing challenges in life starting from a very young age. Exposed to disease, death, famine, abuse, natural disasters, poverty and other tribulations has made these children the prime focus of ADV's mission to provide a better life for them. A life lived with respect to their basic human rights; education, health care, food, shelter, emotional security and stability, as well as a life lived with dignity. All of the children you will see photographed come from marginalised communities, such as the Adivasis (tribals), Nepalese and Muslims, most of them a part of the ADV sponsorship program. Born into a fate of hardship, the lives of these children are continuously improving with the guidance and cooperation of local partners, local communities and the parents & guardians of the beneficiaries. ADV continues to be an integral part of the lives of the children, reaching out also to their families through different projects such as microcredit, vocational training in farming & tailoring, a mobile health clinic and water & sanitation. I am so proud to work with them, travelling across West Bengal, documenting the lives and faces of the children, and am forever indebted to the many rays of sunshine that have been all the children I have met and gotten to know over the last 10 months. Despite all the setbacks life has thrown at them, these children are some of the most gracious, hard working, spirited and thoughtful creatures I have ever come across. They are a part of a special generation of youth, who are on their way to bringing the planet back from the brink of self-destruction by applying their natural sense of being, embodied in an ancient knowledge of truth, kindness and peace. These children will determine the fate of our civilization, with either a desperate revival of it or its complete demise.
