Christian Aid Photograph Makes it to Time Magazine Best Photos of the Year

A photograph commissioned by Christian Aid for a special exhibition currently being held to mark the first anniversary of the Asian tsunami next Monday has been selected by Time Magazine as one of the best photos of the year.

|PIC1|The chosen photograph by Tim Hetherington captures Muslim schoolgirls playing in the sea in Colombo, Sri Lanka, ten months after the tsunami killed 30,000 people in their country.

Hetherington was invited by Christian Aid to visit parts of Sri Lanka and India most devastated by the tsunami and to witness the challenge of rebuilding.

“I think it’s great the photograph has been included in Time Magazine’s best photos of the year and it will keep the story of the tsunami in the news,” said Tim Hetherington.

“It was fantastic to have the opportunity to document the work that Christian Aid is doing in India and Sri Lanka to put people back on their feet after the tsunami.”

The selected photo can be viewed at the special anniversary exhibition, “Every time I see the sea...Life after the Tsunami”, which displays collections of photographs and sculpture weaving together the amazing and moving tales of survival and reconstruction.

|AD|Caroline Gammell, reporter with Associated Press, described the exhibition as ‘striking’, adding that “the high visual quality really made the stories stand out. I was particularly impressed with the ceramic sculptures”.

Comments left in the exhibition’s interactive comment book include ‘brilliant’, ‘amazing’, and ‘a remarkable and haunting memoir’.

One visitor said: “The most telling images are the children’s paintings, beautiful and powerful.”

Another commented: “It’s good to know that people still care about the tsunami after the story has left the headline.”

The exhibition has been open to the public since last Friday 9 December, at the Dray Walk Gallery at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London EC1 and is free to the public.

It runs until 3rd January 2006 with memorial lanterns to be lit at the side of the exhibition at 1pm on Boxing Day to mark the moment the disaster occurred.

For more info go to www.christianaid.org.uk/tsunami