Dominic Chavez is a Boston-based freelance photojournalist, who formerly worked at The Boston Globe, specializing in global health issues. In the last year, the Ministerial Leadership Initiative has supported Chavez and writer John Donnelly's travel to the five countries that work with MLI: Nepal, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali, and Ethiopia. In this fourth of five segments, one from each country, Donnelly interviewed Chavez about his work and about the images below. What follows are his perspectives on his assignment in Nepal, which focused in part on the Ministry of Health and Population’s efforts in promoting family planning:

“Nepal was really exciting. It was kind of energizing in the sense that to me it was an example of seeing families really empowered to make family planning choices. They are taking a proactive role in creating the right-sized family for them. And this, I believe, must have a profound effect on maternal mortality rate because many families are planning out when they are having children, and having fewer children. It also financially stabilizes families as well if they aren’t having six or seven kids, and instead having one or two kids. Nepal was a very positive story, and it was really nice to see such young people empowered and not feeling pressured from their parents or grandparents or extended family members to have more kids.”

“This first photo is of a 17-year-old girl, Sushmita. This was her first child; the baby is four months old. It has nice light and it’s a tender moment between her and her daughter.”

“This was one of the best days on this project – in Kathmandu, photographing the Hindu festival called Teej, where women fast and pray for good marriages and for their husband and children to live long lives. There were countless numbers of women all dressed in red, dancing, singing, completely celebrating.  It was incredible to witness it, and it was unlike almost all events I’ve ever been to. In many major events, there always seems to be some sort of trouble at some point, but there was none of that here. Maybe it was because it was purely women at this event. It was awesome, it was exciting, there were no issues, no testosterone, and the women really embraced being photographed and wanting to be with each other.”

“I liked the light in the hallway of the Ministry of Health and Population. You know, watching from a distance, seeing all these people work in the Ministries of Health, you get the sense they have a tremendous responsibility on their shoulders. So in trying to make pictures of people who are in a position where they can make a difference in people’s lives, well, I want to photograph them as strong characters because they have so much responsibility.”

“I met a mother of a little girl, it was her first child, and she invited me to go to her house with her sister, who is standing behind her in the photograph. Both of these young women decided they would have only one child. They both had little girls. When I asked them if they felt pressure to have a little boy, the mother’s response was, `I don’t discriminate against gender.’ It was really nice how strongly she felt about having one child and about having a little girl. The picture captures intimacy and love and life at home and how it was the right choice for her.”

Other Photo Blogs

Sierra Leone

Senegal

Mali

Ethiopia