Newberg Graphic Online

GFU graduate’s photo destined for National Geographic publication

Photo contest — Charith Norvelle’s photo taken during a term studying abroad in Africa

• By: Laurent Bonczijk  
• Published: 12/24/2009 1:15:13 PM

   A recent George Fox University graduate landed in the pages of a National Geographic publication — a feat which most professional photographers can only dream of — with a picture she took during a study abroad program in Africa.
   Charith Norvelle, 23, who graduated from Fox in 2008, was studying in Uganda when she took the photo that gave her the runner-up position in “Glimpse,” a publication which features travel writing and photography by students from around the world.
   “I started doing photography in high school with 4-H,” she said. While a GFU student, she took a couple of photography courses and started shooting student events for the university. She also began to photograph portraits of people in her off time.
   Her work started being published at Fox after she studied in India with the juniors abroad program. The university bought one of her pictures, she said, and after that her shots regularly appeared in publications from the marketing and communication departments.
   The shots she took in Uganda were purchased by Food for the Hungry, the ministry who organizes the study abroad program that took her to Uganda. Her relationship with the ministry has continued as she interned for them during the summer of 2008 and eventually was hired for a full-time position in October 2008.
   She works for the ministry’s Go-Ed program and is doing freelance photography and is working on a Web site to advertise her skills. She prefers to shoot candid portraits and will soon head to Cambodia and the Philippines to photograph for Food for the Hungry.
   Norvelle said she tries to capture people’s emotion and doesn’t care much for most photography of the needy in Third World countries. Too often, she said, those are images of poverty and depravity that she says is emotional manipulation of the viewers. Her goal is “trying to capture them in a positive light.”
   “Go-Ed is an academic initiative of Food for the Hungry,” Norvelle said. She’s been recruiting students at about 20 other small private Christian colleges across America. It’s a full study abroad program designed so that students immerse themselves in the local culture. They take several credit classes in the areas of peacekeeping and social and economic development, as well as performing an internship designed by the local office of Food for the Hungry, which supports their residency.
   Go-Ed currently offers three programs, Norvelle said, each with a different emphasis. The Uganda students are provided with a curriculum that focuses on peacekeeping and international relations. Students who go to Thailand will be presented with a curriculum focusing on human trafficking, the exclusion of marginal people and social justice.
    A South American program in Bolivia is centered on science and issues of sustainability. Her internship consisted of developing marketing projects for children’s sponsorships.
   “We work in 26 countries around the world,” Norvelle said of Food for the Hungry, which tries to care for people’s physical and spiritual needs.
   About 90 percent of their work is to provide local development in the form of child sponsorships, community sponsorships (to build wells, schools, churches and other infrastructure), and microfinancing, while 10 percent is old-fashioned relief efforts. In case of a catastrophe, they’re capable of sending relief teams within 24 hours.

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