Jacob Foko, Brooks Institute

Changing the World, One Image at a Time

“Do not deny your help to others,” a mother tells a child. In Cameroon, a country in central Africa, those words have special meaning. The nation is poor. The World Bank rates Cameroon at 156 of 209 countries in terms of gross national income per capita, just a few dollars above the $952 average for all Sub-Saharan Africa countries.  And life expectancy in the country is just 50 years—five years less than it was in 1990. With so many challenges in any given day, denying others might seem to be unavoidable.

Meet photographer Jacob Foko, 38, founder of the Global Humanitarian Photojournalists, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of social injustice. Foko grew up in Cameroon. His father was the King of the Baleng tribe, part of the Bamileke ethnic group in the western part of the country.

If every king’s son became interested in humanitarian concerns, the world would no doubt be a better place. History suggests that most find other interests. Foko listened to his mother’s words, however, and those words set him on a path to the United States, Brooks Institute, a life in service to others, and the 2009 Career College Association GREAT Awards.  The connection between cameras and caring for mankind may not click for every reader. Foko first picked up a camera as a school boy, when he began taking pictures of his classmates.

“I disliked the posed smiles, positions and gestures. I wanted something more real, more truthful. Candid photography allowed me to see the world through a different set of eyes and let me capture moments that could not be captured any other way,” Foko says.

His obvious talent behind the lens led to jobs photographing weddings, parties and other assignments. Foko attended college in Cameroon, earning a baccalaureate degree in Philosophy.  The pull of the camera, however, proved far stronger than the musings of Kant and Kafka. Before long, Foko was working as a freelance photographer for Cameroon National TV and Libre Afrique magazine. 

Focusing on the Commonplace

As he traveled covering news and features on various assignments, Foko found himself drawn to what he calls “the opportunity to meet people and [see] their living conditions, developing my sense as a storyteller. I decided to create the Cameroon Association of Humanitarian Photojournalists, focused on telling a different kind of story—a story so commonplace it was often overlooked.”

Foko began to fill his frames with images of poverty, sacrifice, pain, disease, starvation and oppression. In December 1999, he organized a national exhibition entitled “Cameroon’s 100 Faces of Poverty.”

Son of a king or no, the Cameroon government did not appreciate having the nation’s poor become the subject of a major photo exhibition. “Unfortunately, poverty is not an issue my government wishes to publicly broadcast,” Foko says. “Everything was seized and taken away. It seems the government at the time did not share my vision.”

“Under despotism, as it was and is in Cameroon, there’s no freedom,” Foko says. “Freedom of speech is very limited or simply ignored. The government still does not understand the importance of humanitarian photojournalism.”  Foko quickly came to the attention of the Cameroon government, but he says that that fact did not stop him from continuing to cover acts of “extreme brutality” against political protesters. His work caught the eye of the U.S. Ambassador who, in 2002, invited Foko to give a talk about the challenges of being a photojournalist in Cameroon. In 2003, the Global Health Council invited him to participate in an awards ceremony in the United States. Once in the U.S., Foko finally decided to let discretion be the better part of valor:

“Due to the growing conflict with the authorities in my country regarding my photographic work, I decided to delay my return out of fear for my well-being,” Foko admits. “I have become a permanent resident of the United States and am very happy and grateful to be under the special protection of the U.S. government.”

Not to be Denied

Once in the U.S., Foko had one other obstacle in his path to accomplishing his professional goals: he spoke virtually no English. “I remember one of my friends telling me that it would be impossible for me to become a photojournalist in the U.S. because of my poor English. To which I replied, ‘Do not deny something to yourself before you ever even take the first step.’”

Foko stepped over the English barrier with alacrity, spending nine months in language classes at Sanz School. He then enrolled at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he perfected his craft in areas like documentary storytelling, photo editing, video editing and multimedia. Foko not only added to his skills, he became something of an in-house resource, coaching third-year photojournalism students about to travel out on photography projects in foreign countries.

Completing his baccalaureate degree in visual journalism from Brooks in 2008, Foko today operates GHP while once again earning his living as a freelance photojournalist. It’s a living that must be very thrifty indeed because humanitarianism is clearly Foko’s first focus. The GHP has projects going in Congo, India and Afghanistan and recently became affiliated with the United Nations Association. “What I earn from GHP is the satisfaction that my life and photographs can make a positive difference in the life of those who currently have no voice,” he says.

Such work could once again prove galling to governments. Foko claims that his purpose is not to confront politicians who happen to be on the “wrong side of history.”

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words,” Foko says, “but often times those words are scripted and rehearsed. This is not only true in areas like Cameroon, but all over the world. My government was not the first and will not be the last to censor and suppress information. Photography is so important to me because it allows me to show the truth of every day life, however beautiful or ugly it may be.”

He continues: “We focus on the life condition of the people, and we think that we can use pictures to generate a positive response for social change in the minds of the people who have the real power to decide.”

And while the camera often serves to separate photojournalists from their subjects, Foko rejects this approach. Rather, he thinks photojournalism can be a tool for making the world a better place. That obviously means much more than clicking a shutter:

“I don’t simply photograph poverty and then leave for good. Changing the lives of those I aim my camera at means being involved with them on a deeper level. If you want to change the world, you have to change the way things are being done…My dream is to see more photojournalists become humanitarians.”

 

 

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