Exhibition on lives of drug users lifts understanding
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Facing the problem: Pham Hoai Thanh tells exhibition visitors about the people he photographed. — VNS Photo Van Dat |
HCM CITY — Stories about private lives of drug users in Viet Nam are being told to the public through an open-air photo exhibition which has opened in HCM City's Lam Son Park.
It is the first time Viet Nam's drug users are having their daily life photographs exhibited publicly in the hope of gaining greater empathy from the community.
Experts and former drug users said the community had a key role in helping addicts kick their habit and reintegrate into the society as productive citizens.
The Face-to-Face with Drugs exhibition has moving photographs taken by Pham Hoai Thanh on the private lives of 50 drug users in the country. The photos are presented in four categories representing different periods in the lives of people who use drugs.
It took Thanh a year to gather the photographs of people creating the exhibition with both people who have overcome or still use drugs.
Five of the 50 drug users were present at the exhibition's opening ceremony to tell their life-stories, while those absent more engaged in building HIV and drug prevention networks, organisers said.
They told the public about their struggle against illegal substances, how they first became involved with drugs and their desire to remake their lives as productive members of their families and communities.
Dang Minh Tuan, a former drug user who had been nervous during the first exhibition in Ha Noi a few days ago was more confident this time. He said the disregard and doubts with which the community viewed them discouraged drug users from reintegrating with the society.
"I hope everybody gives us an opportunity. We really want to be better. With supporting hands from the community, we can do it," Tuan said. He hoped that the exhibition would help the community learn more about drug users.
Tuan said that he had finished setting up the website, www.matuysos.com, to help drug users rehabilitate and help the larger community understand and sympathise more with drug addicts and their efforts to fight their habit.
Wayne Wiebel, Senior HIV and Drug Rehab Technical Advisor for USAID, the development aid agency of the US government, said the photos about drug users and their stories would help communities understand the challenges that drug users face in quitting their habit and reintegrating into society.
The event, organised by the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives (SCDI), runs through Saturday and coincides with World AIDS Day on December 1.
The project is sponsored by the USAID and the Open Society Foundation. — VNS