“Mangpli”

It is a photography camp project for the Khumi, Mro and Marma Indigenous children who are studying in Kinitheu Primary School in Naikhongchhari Upazila under Bandarban Hill District. The main objective of the project is to introduce Camera and Photography as an effective instrument to the Indigenous children to share their unsung stories especially about inequality, deforestation, water crisis and other complex factors leading their lives towards an uncertain future. The project also aims to counter “The idea of a photographic “gaze” that has been introduced since the colonial period.

“Mangpli” project focuses mainly on the lifestyle of the 35 Indigenous
children of Kinitheu Primary School who share a hostel near the school. The project tried to understand how they are painting their childhood including collecting water from the stream and tried to realize the impacts of the water crisis due to deforestation and climate change. The project also identified a good practice of the children that they initiated a small organic vegetable firm in there. There is still a huge bank of stories and a treasure of Indigenous knowledge to be discovered in there.