This classroom full of girls at Nakasangola Primary School in Uganda is brimming with pre-teen energy. Several years ago, these girls were among the first in Africa to receive the HPV vaccine. During this 2014 follow-up visit, the girls and their teachers were still able to offer detailed explanations of how the vaccine protects them from cervical cancer. (Learn more.) Photo: PATH/Will Boase.
This photo from Laos stood out among the submissions for the 2015 Places We Go calendar. We love the beautiful tile pattern, unusual angle, and the piercing gaze of the student (not to mention the sparkling cleanliness of the toilet!). We also loved the story communicated in the image: through the GIZ Regional Fit for School Programme, students learn healthy hygiene habits and help maintain the school’s toilets, creating a ripple effect in families and communities. (Learn more.) Photo: GIZ/Ivan Sarenas.
On Global Female Condom Day 2014, dancers all over the world joined the “Dance4Demand” advocacy effort to highlight the need for increased access to female condoms. We love the energy of these dancers photographed while performing at a popular mall in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Learn more.) Photo: PATH.
That smile! In all our decades of vaccination campaign work, this might be the biggest smile-while-getting-a-shot we have ever encountered. The Japanese Encephalitis vaccine, which PATH worked to accelerate and get approved by the World Health Organization, was distributed in April by the Laotian government in a campaign partly supported by Microsoft employee donations. (Learn more.) Photo: PATH/Aaron Joel Santos.
In communities across southern Zambia, the comprehensive malaria elimination efforts led by the government, PATH, and our partners are starting to bear fruit. Today the disease is still affecting the fishing villages along Lake Kariba, but we are optimistic that this fisherman’s children may grow up into adulthood in a malaria-free Zambia. (Learn more.) Photo: PATH/Gabe Bienczycki.
Bonus behind-the-scenes photo: The fisherman portrait shown above conveys an almost classical serenity, but in fact the mid-December photo shoot on the shore of Lake Kariba occurred at the epicenter of a joyful (and muddy!) mayhem of children, onlookers, stray dogs, and grazing cows. This was photographer Gabe Bienczycki’s fourth trip for PATH, and we look forward to sharing more of his remarkable Zambia portraits, and a short video about his process, in 2015. Photo: PATH/Tom Furtwangler.