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A graduate’s reflections on the PNDP workshop

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The IGL’s PNDP workshop in Myanmar was a transformative experience for me. My project focused on the Yangon Circular Railway and the low-income agricultural and factory workers riding it each day. The format of the workshop allowed me full days to explore and document the railway and its surrounding areas on the outskirts of the city, while our nightly group meetings and critiques with Sam James and Gary Knight helped to guide my work over the course of the week. I felt that this process provided a good balance between independent work and frequent feedback. Meanwhile, the experience of deeply exploring a country at such a pivotal turning point in its history and engaging with the people living there kept me longing to return to Myanmar for months after the workshop ended. It is this curiosity and drive to explore international issues on a real human level that I feel the IGL cultivates so well.

As an aspiring photojournalist and a graduating senior, this kind of experience in has been crucial to my education. It has allowed me to experiment with producing solid photojournalistic pieces with the strong guidance of experts in the field as well as the constant support of my fellow students. I believe that the Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice provides a unique and extraordinarily valuable opportunity; it is rare that an aspiring international photojournalist gets to experience this level of training in the field from a renowned photographer like Gary as part of an undergraduate education.                                                                                                                         I have decided to remain in the region after the workshop, and am beginning my post graduate venture into the world of journalism back in Myanmar. It is a country I knew little about before participating in the PNDP workshop, but one that I have found fascinating and incredibly relevant to the international community given its recent history of change. I look forward to further exploring the country and moving forward in my photojournalistic work here, and I attribute the confidence that I have to pursue this path to the the valuable support I received at Tufts through the IGL.

Agricultural workers crowd onto the Yangon Circular Railway to transport goods to the market


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