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Bucks
County Courier Times - Life Section
January 15, 2006
By Gwen Shift, Staff Writer
Developing World
How a Bucks County woman became a global storyteller,
and where she's going next.
The world is one big story, humanity linked in twisting latitudes
and longitudes of narrative — plots and subplots and
histories, chronicles and sagas and epics.
This is Joan 'Sara' Klatchko’s territory. She is a reporter-at-large
on very large subjects, to which she brings a gift for drawing
the finest points from the smallest subjects.
"I’m big on microcosms," she says, and it
is no joke. By focusing on a relatively small area, such as
one person’s daily routine, she uncovers issues of worldwide
significance. Her photographs from around the world become
analytical tools as well as mini-biographies of her subjects.
Most recently, she traveled
to the Galapagos Islands to document the lives of two young
boys living on opposite sides of a major dilemma. Jonathan’s
father is a fisherman and Tairon’s dad captains a tour
boat.
The children’s stories illuminate
the social and personal upheavals as a pristine environment
is caught up in ecological issues brought on both by overfishing
of certain species and an exploding tourist industry.
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Top photograph by Jim
Parker
All other photographs by Joan
Sara Klatchko
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The Galapagos are "The last untouched islands
in the world," said Klatchko. "I thought, what a great
story for kids…. How do you stop people from poaching on the
national parks in Africa? It’s the same thing, all around
the world."
She arranged to link the boys’ schools to two in the Philadelphia
area, sending pictures every day and facilitating the exchange of
letters and cards among the American and Ecuadorean children.
Klatchko is well-versed in covering the lives of children in faraway
places. Inspired by her global travels, and professionally equipped
with photography and reporting skills, she came up with a project
entitled "Kids Across the World" that is being used as
an educational tool. She’s photographed children in 29 nations,
from Argentina to Zimbabwe.
Like the stories she covers, there are layers to Klatchko’s
odyssey. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Levittown, she became
immersed in an international scene as a teenager while working as
a horse-walker at Keystone Park racetrack (now Philadelphia Park).
Many of her fellow handlers were Hispanic, and she learned Spanish
to communicate. "You really honor people when you speak their
language," she said. Testing out of several courses at Bucks
County Community College, she acquired a two-year degree in a year
and a half, and a new enthusiasm — world travel.
Determined to save money for a trip to Spain, she continued walking
horses and supplemented her earnings with a night job at a bar —
"The first thing they did was show me where the gun was"
— and set off for Europe at age 20.
She ended up working in television production in London, in the
course of which she taught herself still photography. For a while,
"My ideas were better than my technical expertise," she
said. She worked with photographers and studied books. "You
can teach yourself a lot," she said.
Between job-related assignments, she worked on her own photo projects,
taking pictures of Sherpa women in Nepal and Aborigines in Australia.
She was earning good money doing corporate photography in Hong Kong,
where she tried to shoot executives "anywhere but behind the
desk," when she began re-evaluating her career.
"Deep down, you know you want to do good things in life, and
you sort of know when you’re compromising too much,"
she said. Klatchko launched a new personal and professional mission,
to educate others using her 15 years’ worth of images.
She studied at Duke University’s Literacy Through Photography
program, later developing her own courses for the University of
the Arts in Philadelphia and kids’ programs at Bucks County
Community College. Klatchko’s work, such as a pictorial documentary
of Levittown, began winning awards and gracing the walls of museums.
Kids Across the World is now a teaching tool, bolstered by technical
expertise from the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate school
of education, which adapted it for the classroom. Klatchko’s
photos are used to get kids to hone their thinking and writing skills
based on discussions about the pictures.
"It’s really about bringing the world into the classroom,"
said Klatchko. "It gets kids thinking about the world and their
link to the world."
Images from the program are scheduled for exhibit at Penn’s
museum of anthropology and archaeology later this year. Klatchko
is busy working on that and on other avenues for linking the nations
of the world kid-by-kid.
The Galapagos project also was taped as a pilot for a proposed Kids
Across the World television show. "I actually do think that
would be a great TV series," said Klatchko.
For more of Klatchko’s work, log on to
www. kidsacrosstheworld.com.
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