BURUNDI POLICE TRAINING PHOTOGRAPHS

(2008)

Pedagogical photographs commissioned by the Belgian development agency, BTC.

These images are a selection of the staged photographs I made for National Police of Burundi. They are being used for the training of ex-rebels, now being folded into civil society in the context of the on-going national reconciliation effort. Since these former rebels are mostly illiterate, the photographs are meant to serve as pictographic guides. They show correct and incorrect attitudes and behavior in a variety of real life situations encountered by the police in Burundi.

These photographs were commissioned by the Belgian development agency, Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC), as part of its training support for the National Police of Burundi. The training support is one of many BTC aid and development program in Burundi, a former Belgian colony that has undergone successive Tutsi - Hutu massacres over the past 25 years, similarly to the situation in Rwanda. Over the last few years, a national reconciliation effort has lead to the integration of rebel leaders into the government, and rebel soldiers into the police and the army.