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| Displaced
in Denan, by Jarrett Schecter |
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Displaced in Denan is the account of New York
photographer Jarrett Shecter's visit to southeastern
Ethiopia as part of the Denan Project, a small medical
relief mission founded by the photographer, documentarian
Dick Young, and others. Denan, located in the Ogaden Desert
in the Somali region, is an Internationally Displaced
Persons (IDP) camp—in other words a camp for refugees who,
by remaining within their national borders, do not achieve
UN refugee status (and therefore, don't receive aid).
A vivid window into a little-known piece of the world, Displaced
in Denan, documents what the mission has
confronted—in a desert climate that daily reaches up to
110 degrees Fahrenheit, where no medical assistance and
little food relief had previously been provided for the
nearly 10,000 IDPs who live there. Part of Schecter's stated
mission to, through photography, “bring awareness to
social injustices that the world faces today,” the book
also captures living reality of the Somali desert, its
conditions and the faces to the numbers. (And also, at
publication, a testament to the Denan Project, which today
has established a free hospital as well as a food aid
program.)
(Displaced in Denan, Jarret Schecter, Trolley
Publishing, $40)
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