His camera joins her courage to keep focus on crisis spots
Aldo Magazzeni and Suraya Pakzad share their efforts to improve life in Afghanistan and beyond.

Published Monday, March 5, 2008
By Jess Kamen for The Philadelphia Inquirer

Aldo Magazzeni is a humanitarian and businessman, not a professional photographer. But captured on standard 35mm film, his experiences in Afghanistan and Kenya appear as fascinating and complex as the people he encountered.

"The photographs not only make you see something. They make you feel something," Magazzeni said. "They show the pain and suffering of the people there, but also the beauty of human relationships."

His photography exhibit, "Traveling Mercies," is on display at the Henrietta Hankin Library in Chester Springs this month. The prints, many enlarged to 35 by 17 inches, are intentionally frameless.

"The larger the prints were, the most real they felt," said Magazzeni, 58, who lives in Montgomery County. "I didn't want to put a piece of glass over them, because it would separate the viewer from the subject. It would be another barrier. I want the viewer to feel a sense of intimacy, like I felt when I was there."

The photographs from Kenya were taken in 2006, when Magazzeni worked with a Jesuit priest to create a village for thousands of children orphaned by AIDS. With the help of workers from surrounding villages, Magazzeni installed a water system that led to the first appearance of vegetation in more than five years. The photos primarily focus on his close relationship with the Rev. Angelo D'Agostino and the building of the water system.

Magazzeni, a partner in a Burlington County firm that makes industrial fasteners, doesn't have an engineering degree, but that hasn't stopped him from finding ways to pump water to villages in Kenya and Afghanistan where residents once had to walk to distant creeks and rivers.

More than half the photographs in the exhibit were taken in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2005.

"The reason why I went to Afghanistan is because the Iraq war started," Magazzeni said. U.S. forces go into countries like Afghanistan, "and then we forget about them. I thought about that a lot, and instead of just sitting around being upset about the Iraqi war, I thought I would do something.

"When countries are left behind after war, it's even more important to reach out and have a relationship with them."

Magazzeni designed five water systems in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan before turning his attention to women's rights.

Afghan women "have such a small voice. They suffer the most and can't improve their situation because they have no rights," Magazzeni said.

His interest in women's issues led him to Suraya Pakzad, executive director of the Voice of Women Organization.

Pakzad, 38, is in the United States to receive the State Department's International Women of Courage Award from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington next week. On Thursday, Pakzad and Magazzeni will speak about Afghanistan at the Hankin Library, and next Sunday Magazzeni will give a solo talk.

Pakzad began Voice of Women secretly in 1998, which she cites as the most difficult time for women in Afghanistan.

Under the ruling Taliban, working for women's issues and girls' education was considered a crime. Despite the enormous risks, Pakzad and other volunteers began teaching girls from their homes.

"There were traditional ovens in each house, and we put a gallon of gasoline next to each one," she said during a visit to the library last week. "If the Taliban showed up, we would quickly burn everything, all the books and supplies, so that there was no evidence of a school. But then we'd have to find a way to get the books again, which was really difficult and could take months."

After the Taliban fell in 2001, Voice of Women became the first registered nongovernmental organization under the new government.

Pakzad and Magazzeni began working together to improve conditions at the women's prison in Kabul.

"The main reason most women are in jail is that they're women," Magazzeni said. He and Pakzad said most women were not aware of their crime, or had been wrongly accused by men.

With the help of male prisoners, they built a system in Herat that provides 15,000 people with fresh water. Pakzad supplied sewing machines to female prisoners so they could learn a trade while in jail, and started a day care for their children.

She also helps run a Herat shelter that not only helps women escape dangerous or abusive situations but also provides a temporary home for women released from jail.

"I think that the best way to help women is to improve their economic condition," Pakzad said. "Having economic independence is important. If you don't have it, you don't have a voice, or a choice in how to live."