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This is part one of a five part assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration on the rebuilding of Zimbabwe after an unprecedented economic and civil collapse. Photos Copyright ©2009 Austin Andrews / International Organization for Migration (IOM) except where noted. Not to be reprinted or reproduced without permission.
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This past August, Will van Engen (blog link) and I visited Zimbabwe on a photographic assignment for IOM International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to promoting safe and humane migration in high-risk nations. Few countries recently have been in the headlines as much for migration issues as Zimbabwe, a failed state wracked by economic implosion where one third of the population now lives abroad, much of it illegally in neighbouring South Africa.
Part one focuses on IOM’s homebuilding programs in remote rural communities for returning migrants.
Boys look out from behind a gate in an IOM-built community outside Mutare, an MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) stronghold near the Mozambican border.
IOM vests supervise a project site near Chiredzi. Here, locals build their own homes from materials provided by IOM.
Staring contest at the washing station. Photo ©2009 Will van Engen / International Organization for Migration (IOM).
A woman sits in her living room under wall-mounted pages from the Qur'an. With electricity sporadic at best, the television sees little use.
Foot traffic outside a new IOM-constructed brick house situated in a community of traditional rondavels.
A father and son make their way through the home-specked flatlands off the grid in Zimbabwe's remote Eastern Highlands.
Chasing the day's last golden light, an IOM convoy makes its way through the bush toward a far-flung building project.
Construction gang on the left, residents-to-be on the right.
Earthly Hands / Materials of Habitation.
Rim tracks in the path to a new home.
A family pauses midway through moving furniture into their new IOM-constructed house.
It looks like such a barren & desolate place, but utterly suffocating somehow. Mother Earth wilted from defeat, showing her wounded underbelly and worn knuckles. The people have a solemn look about them, but the few smiles captured in your images demonstrate the sheer fight of these people and perhaps a deep-seated optimism amongst the youth for a better life to come.
You’ve reminded me that I need to get my photos up!