Humans of the World: HONY and the UN Team Up for World Tour
Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind the well-loved blog Humans of New York has teamed up with the United Nations to tour ten countries around the world. His intimate, human micro-stories help us see behind the headlines and discover the real daily experiences of our world’s citizens, especially those in countries caught up in conflict or poverty. Stanton reminds us of our essential oneness, our essential humanity.
Here are a few entries from the trip to far.
“I can’t see, so he guides me. Whenever I make a sound, he will come running. He reads to me. He cooks for me. And he got the second highest ranking in his 6th grade class.”
(Nurpur, India)
When violence broke out in Sudan last December, Michael was shot twice in the leg while he was walking home from school. Michael is a member of the Nuer tribe, and his shooting was a hate crime committed against him by members of the Dinka tribe. I sat down to talk with him at the Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC) Center, in the presence of Cathy, the center’s director. Before we even broached the subject of the shooting, Cathy spoke with Michael for several minutes. In a particularly beautiful moment, Cathy had Michael list all the members of the Dinka tribe who had helped in his recovery. Eventually, Cathy asked Michael if he wanted to talk about the shooting. He shook his head ‘no.’ Not wanting to push the issue, I quickly changed the topic. I pulled out my iPhone, and began to show Michael pictures of Susie The Dog. He took the phone from me, and spent several minutes scrolling through all my photos. Later that night, after I returned to the hotel, I found an unexpected new picture on my phone.
(Juba, South Sudan)
Today in microfashion…
(Amritsar, India)
“What’s your biggest goal in life?”
“To be useful.”
(Odessa, Ukraine)
“They sometimes ask me about their grandmother, and I only tell them about the good times. I don’t want to worry them with all the things my mother and I had to go through when I was growing up.””What’s your fondest memory of your mother?””We were so poor that every day she’d have to go out and try to find us some food. And on the days when she came home empty handed, she’d help us forget our hunger by putting on music and dancing for us.”
(Jinja, Uganda)
Visit Humans of New York, UN Tour for much more.