"Fotos for Honduras" Exhibit and Fundraiser

“Fotos for Honduras” will be displayed from December 3, 2006, through January 12, 2007. All are welcome to attend the opening reception on Thursday, December 7, at 7 p.m. The engaging photographic images depict lives of villagers in San José de Sierra in rural Honduras, Central America.

Participating medical students, together with faculty and clinicians from the University of Rochester’s Department of Family Medicine, are dedicated to improving the health of the rural poor in Honduras. Family Medicine is one of four other similar departments in the U.S. collaborating with the University of Cincinnati and their nonprofit organization, Shoulder to Shoulder. One of the principle tenets of Shoulder to Shoulder is for each Family Medicine department to establish an on-going relationship with a specific village in Honduras and to work together to improve the health status of that village.

San José has no running water, no electricity, and no clinic, but dedicated volunteers still manage to see over 100 patients per day during their twice-yearly visits, in addition to working on initiatives in health, education, and economics.

Deepak Sobti, the exhibit’s coordinator and one of the featured photographers, is a medical student who went to San José for 2006 spring break. He established fotoshunduras.com as a way to raise money and awareness for current and future sustainable development projects.

The Fotos for Honduras Web site offers photos taken in the San José area of rural Honduras, where almost every community is from the Lenca tribe of indigenous Indians. Additional photos on the site feature scenes from around the world and have been generously donated to support the project. The fund-raiser and the exhibit would not have been possible without the generous support of Rochester Photographic and Lumiere Photo.

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