Jim Holmes

AusAID funds a wide reaching programme in Nepal that includes a large number of AVIDs (Australian Volunteers for International Development.) that work in a professional capacity The Avid programme places specialists in areas of development need where their skills can support projects

Rural communities in Mongolia are often nomadic and the provision of core education services is difficult to manage. UNICEF supports the government to provide ground-breaking alternatives such as mobile preschools in ger, the traditional felt tent. Dilapidated rural boarding schools have been modernised with water and sanitation provision. In Ulan Bator an urban programme assists the growing number of street children that often live rough in the heating ducts under the city streets.

Water and sanitation issues are core to the reduction of rural poverty. Understanding the connection between dirty water, poor personal hygiene and a lack of community sanitation is a World Bank project conducted in the minority areas of northern Lao.

UNICEF supports the Ministry of Health in Laos to conduct routine vaccinations. These children are receiving measles vaccines through a programme at schools

Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from the American conflict in Vietnam is still a constant danger for farmers and children in the rural areas of Lao. From the small anti-personnel devices scattered through most parts of the country, to the vast bombs of up to 2000 pounds that are sometimes unearthed, most can still explode. AusAID supports technical agencies that are clearing the bombs while at the same time improving facilities to provide prosthetics for those who survive a UXO incident. Most do not.

Theun Hinboun Power Company spent 5 years constructing an expansion dam on a tributary of the Mekong River in Lao PDR. These images are a small selection from an archive that follows the construction from the cutting of the first turf to the completion of this US$800 million project. Images document the technical construction, environmental impacts and the changes that relocation brought to communities that had once lived very traditional lives in this area.

Lao: Phu Bia Copper Mine

Norwegian Church Aid works in rural Akha minority communities in the remote north west of Laos along the banks of the Mekong River. This region is known for its high rate of opium addiction, and some Akha communities also practicing a very liberal sexual code which results in a high rate of STDs Phangoa Village, Long District, Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR.

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research supports this fisheries project on the Mekong. With local support they are building fish ladders to increase the number of fishes that can reach a vital wetland used as a fish spawning ground.

The International Water Management Institute works in Laos to locate and secure year-round water sources for an expanding agricultural sector.

As communities modernise and the young migrate to cities and towns in search of paying work increasingly numbers of older people are left alone on their rural villages. HelpAge works with communities to support older people with the issues that this causes. Loneliness, a lack of support, and mobility problems all cause increasing suffering to older people that traditionally would have anticipated being within a supportive family structure in the later years.

Oxfam works with partners to provide a range of crucial services to both urban and rural communities, especially those marginalised by poverty. The Indonesian Islands of West Papua and Alor were the sites of projects that aimed to raise water and sanitation provision as this is crucial to raising health standards.

The Bernard van Leer Foundation is a privately owned not for profit agency that specialises in early childhood development (ECD). The foundation supports smaller community-led initiatives in many parts of the developing world.

Oxfam’s rural development programme supports a range of initiatives from better agricultural practices through community fisheries protection and water security.

UNICEF works extensively within Burma on education, healthcare, mother and child nutrition and routine vaccinations. As Burma considers opening to international development there are increasing areas that become accessible and are in need of assistance. Hpa-an, Kayin State, Burma.

Cyclone Nargis hit Burma in 2008 causing widespread damage and loss of life in the Ayeyarwady River Delta killing over 100,000 people. These images result from two assignments for UNICEF and Save the Children at different times to document the situation for fundraising and public information.

Burma suffered from an extensive outbreak of Avian Influenza in 2006 which spread through the poultry industry. UNICEF was instrumental in supporting the government veterinary service to develop and disseminate materials which promoted good practices. This series results from an assignment which also included a series of photography and visual communications training workshops.

Selection of images resulting from assignments in Burma over many years

Norwegian Church Aid runs a development programme in Bamyan, Faryab and Daikundi that aims to raise incomes and make existences more secure. The programme has components of agriculture, water, sanitation, solar power and conflict resolution.

In 2004 following a massive offshore earthquake a tsunami came ashore in the province of Aceh, on Sumatra Island, Indonesia. As the international community scrambled to help it because increasingly obvious that this has been a vast wave. My images result from numerous assignments in Aceh, for Oxfam, UNICEF, WHO and others over a period of 4 years through the emergency phase and well into the recovery.