Project

PORTRAITS
OF HOPE

 

Fraternity at Bahia Backlands

In Brazil, especially in the Backlands of Bahia, there are several families that besides suffering with the drought, live isolated and deal with the scarcity of food. Many of these families live in wattle and daub houses lighted up by oil lamps.

Structures without proper kitchens or bathrooms that collapse in the rain. The Portraits of Hope project works in the Backlands and other regions of extreme poverty in Bahia, offering specific donations, and aiding in several areas, school tutoring, art, and music classes.

In Canudos-Ba, it has been building the Vila Esperança (Village of Hope), replacing wattle and daub houses for new homes, investing in educational and cultural activities. The dream is to offer quality of life to the needy community, through the distribution of water, basic sanitation, education, and income generation.

Monthly, through the Caravans to the Backlands, volunteers from all over the country join this fraternal mission to transform stories of suffering into a new beginning of hope.

Bahia Backlands, A Scenario
Devastated by Drought

One of the most suffered regions in Brazil. Entire families in extreme poverty. Without any assistance, they survive on leftovers, and the great majority of them suffer from hunger and hopelessness. Through photographs this sad reality can begin to take a new direction. A book, composed of 84 photographs recorded between 2010 and 2017 became the project Portraits of Hope, which was born due to the urgency of the awakening of humanity with the already known situation of the municipalities of the state and the need to return to those photographed.

Bismarck Araujo is the young photographer of these portraits. From Retirolândia-Ba, he registers in the lens of his camera, the poverty of the Backlands of his state, in the memory of his memories, the suffered and poor childhood, and in his heart, the courage, to start alone to change all this sad history.