UNICEF Photo of the Year 2002

Each year, UNICEF Germany grants the “UNICEF Photo of the Year Award” to photos and photo series that best depict the personality and living conditions of children worldwide in an outstanding manner. Here are the winners 2002.

Jan Grarup

Forgotten Refugees of the World

2002: Jan Grarup

"Forgotten Refugees of the World"

Photo report on refugee children of the civil war-torn Liberia

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Photographer Jan Grarup took this award-winning picture in June 2002 near the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is part of a photo series on children who fled their homeland Liberia to escape the civil war.

One picture shows them begging for border passes to get across to a refugee camp in Sierra Leone. Through an opening in the wall, the hands of children seem to be grasping at a void.According to United Nations estimates, some 200.000 people in Libereria were fleeing from marauding soldiers who have been terrorizing the population after the war erupted again in 2002.

Approximately 125.000 people sought refuge in neighboring Sierra Leone. UNICEF maintained in 2002 an aid program – also with the support of the German Federal Government - for more than 50.000 people in four refugee camps.

2. Preis für Wolfgang Müller, "Karat, der Himmel über St. Petersburg"

2. Prize Photo of the Year 2002: Karat, the sky over St. Petersburg — © Wolfgang Müller, Germany

"Karat" is derived from the name of a shoe polish containing volatile solvents. Street kids use this polish for sniffing. "Heaven over St. Petersburg" denotes not only illusory spaces, but also very real ones: many of these children find a place to sleep in attics and on rooftops above the city where they can be undisturbed taking drugs and earning their living through prostitution.

In the years 2000 and 2001 Wolfgang Müller photographed children and young adults in St. Petersburg whose center of life is the street. Over the course of nine months he accompanied eight different groups or individuals. He has received important awards for his work.

3. Preis für Stuart Freedman, "Auffanglager, Burundi 2000"

3. Prize Photo of the Year 2002: Transit Camps, Burundi 2000 — © Stuart Freedman, Great Britain, Network Photographers

A Hutu child carries water to the makeshift shelter where his family is forced to live. Hutu peasants are kept for their own safety in transit camps guarded by Tutsi soldiers.

“Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, enough food is available on our planet. But nevertheless people are still dying of hunger," says the photographer. “Politics and Hunger” is a project by Stuart Freeman for which he already photographed in Burundi, southern Sudan, Iraq, and Brazil.

4. Preis für Cathia Hecker, "Hanna - Lebensbilder eines Kindes"

4. Prize Photo of the Year 2002: Hanna - pictures from a child´s life — © Cathia Hecker, Germany

Hanna is a ten-year old girl who was born with Down's syndrome. The photos were first published August 2001 in the book „Hanna – Lebensbilder eines Kindes“.Hanna lives near the city of Osnabrück together with her father and two younger sisters. She attends a special education school and takes part in the many recreational activities offered by a typical community. She plays and lives with her friends and sisters.

In her innermost self, her often indomitable zest for life and her ability to give direct expression to whatever moves her exists a vitality surprising to many.The photographer’s intent was to question anew the definition of disability and normality, of being different and of conformity. She succeeded in portraying an optimistic and positive series of views of a German girl born with a disability.