What Kids Can Do

India in a Time of Globalization

A Photo Essay by Indian Youth

A project of What Kids Can Do and Adobe Youth Voices

Edited by Barbara Cervone

May 2008 — Paperback — 88 pages, color photographs —ISBN: 0-9762706-9-2 — $9.95 (USD)

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Growing up in a swiftly developing India, a new generation of young people has questions about its present and their future.

What jobs await them? Will their cultural traditions thrive, or fade away? How is family life changing in a round-the-clock globalized era?

A new book gives compelling and colorful answers in the form of a 94-page photo-essay created by students from New Delhi and Bangalore. India in a Time of Globalization was produced by What Kids Can Do, Inc. with support from Adobe Systems, Inc. as part of its international initiative, Adobe Youth Voices.

With tape recorders and cameras, the young photo-journalists went into their communities looking for evidence of how their world is changing. They interviewed auto-rickshaw drivers and scientists, call center workers and business professionals, finding the stories behind the economic data of India’s recent transformation. Most were holding a camera for the first time as they snapped stunning digital color photographs of people and scenes in streets, parks, markets, and the workplace.

In Bangalore, eleven students from the Government High School at Cotton Pet joined the project as photographers; most were between 11 and 14 and came from a slumdwellers neighborhood. Thirteen students in their mid-teens, from the Noida Public Senior Secondary School, also recorded and transcribed interviews, learning much about journalism as they approached people in all walks of life. In New Delhi, seven students from the Child Rights Information Centre of Bal Panchayat documented the challenges facing children and families, through photographs and research.

Students and their teachers worked closely with a photographer and an editor who visited all three sites from What Kids Can Do (WKCD), a U.S. nonprofit organization documenting “powerful learning with public purpose” by youth around the world. WKCD also wrote the captions that accompany the students’ photographs, combining journalistic research with quotes from interviews by students.

“It seems fitting and important to enlist the next generation as social documenters of a changing India in this time of rapid globalization,” commented Naresh Gupta, managing director of Adobe India, in the book’s introduction. “They come with an open mind and fresh opinions— and this is the world they are inheriting.”

Many of the youthful participants spoke of how much they learned from the project. “We are a country of contradictions,” said one student from New Delhi. “We are the world’s oldest democracy, but we are divided by caste. We are one of the world’s fastest growing economies, but one of its poorest. We are filled with national pride, but see so much that needs correction.”

Barbara Cervone, the book’s editor and the president of What Kids Can Do, Inc., also noted the “eagerness and fresh vision” of the young photographers, who snapped more than 5,000 images in the course of the project.

"SAT Bronx provides us with a different entry point for conversations about equity. It combines two codes and cultural lingos, reminding us that youth can conduct sharp analysis of complex factors and situations that are not cut-and-dried."
– Gregory Peters, San Francisco Center for Essential Small Schools (SFCESS)

“The remarkable stories in Pass It On testify to the power of community, of working together and helping one another. Each one inspires and gives hope, showing us the power of supportive relationships in the lives of youth.”
—Mayor David Cicilline,
Providence, RI

“It seems fitting and important to enlist the next generation as social documenters of a changing India in this time of rapid globalization. They come with an open mind and fresh opinions—and this is the world they are inheriting.”
—Naresh Gupta,
Managing Director, Adobe India

“The village life Kambi ya Simba's youth document is at once ordinary and surprising, entrepreneurial and backward. Its dreams are both wide and narrow, its times both good and bad.”
– www.allafrica.com

“Using curiosity as their credentials, the teenagers—who are recent immigrants and still learning English—took tape recorders and digital cameras to document the lives of their neighbors, friends, and even family members. Forty-Cent Tip is the remarkable result.”
– Stephen Wolgast, NewsPhotographer

"The scientific components are as good as any I've seen, while the poems and personal reflections on nature, science and place help to bring the San Diego Bay area alive. Taken together, Perspectives of San Diego Bay captures the essence of not just a region, but of the deep connections between nature, science and humanity..."
– Thomas Hayden,
US News & World Report

“First in the Family is PERFECT for our student population! I couldn’t imagine anything more useful or inspiring or informative.”
– Lynne Marie Bruce,
Golden Gate HS

“This book is a bible for college preparatory services! There is really nothing else like this out there--there are tons of reports, but nothing else with faces, names, and the emotional resonance of First in the Family.”
– Emily Steinberg,
Admission Control

“Sent to the Principal captures the essence of what Breaking Ranks II means by personalization. Giving students voice so that they can have an impact on their schooling and be engaged in the school community is an integral part of the school reform process.”
– John Nori, National Assoc. of Secondary School Principals

“Read every word of What We Can’t Tell You, as I did, and you’ll get to know these articulate teens by name. Consult it often, and you’ll become an accomplished and empathetic mentor.”
– Cathi Dunn MacRae,
Voices of Youth Advocates