People's Choice Prize

Mr David-Paul Pertaub, Anthropology

Cataract

The Turkana are one of the last remaining nomadic pastoralist tribes of Africa. Living as they do in an extremely arid and remote part of Northwest Kenya, they are constantly moving in search of water and pasture for their herds. The elder in the photograph is suffering from severe cataracts and is completely blind, making him a liability for his household. I was making a short ethnographic film for the Department of Anthropology at UCL about the tribe, and came across him in the district hospital in Lodwar. He was one of the lucky ones: he had been identified by an outreach program sponsored by a Spanish NGO and had a successful operation to remove the cataracts, allowing him to return to his family and participate fully in his community.

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