Amy writes “While traveling throughout Nicaragua, and making stops at Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas projects, it was great fun to spend time with the children and leave them with a photo of themselves. All the participants loved practicing photo diplomacy through Dog Meets World! Perhaps the most fun was watching the kids, their expressions, excitement and anticipation as the photo was printed right before their eyes. I’m fairly certain they had never seen anything like it, and were thrilled to walk away with a photo in hand. Also, we stopped at a center for individual special needs and made photos which they placed on their desks. We took and printed over 100 photos during our short time there.”

Tom Neuhauser attended the Learning Center Trek with Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners last summer. Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas, Inc. is a not-for-profit, non-political organization working to enhance the quality of life in both Wisconsin and Nicaragua through people-to-people programs promoting cultural awareness and sustainable community development.

Tom visited Wisconsin’s Partner Country (Nicaragua) with team that taught workshops at the Learning Centers, or in Tom’s case – took and printed photos for Dog Meets World, which was very, very well received. What a great collaborations for people-to-people interactions.

Tom recounts: The children were very excited to have a picture of themselves to bring home and share with friends and family. They waited patiently in a long line to have their picture taken and were mesmerized watching the photo actually print on the portable printer. I enjoyed taking part in this project, it was a wonderful experience.

The Dog Meets World project was taken with a teen group from buildOn, a terrific nonprofit that seeks to empower youth through different national and international service opportunities. Lara Levine was the group leader and said both the American kids and the Nicaraguan kids had a blast sharing through photography.

Lara accompanied high school students in after school program (Amanda Rodriguez a 16 yr old student shown here) BuildOn to help build a school in Nicaragua. Lara describes her eagerness to involve the students with the photo project saying “When I was living in South Africa, just like the mission of Dog Meets World, I realized how much children are drawn to seeing their picture! A lot of this is because mirrors aren’t as big a part of their culture, a lot is because most people in these areas don’t have the money or means to get pictures taken or developed. Becca Cohen told me about Dog Meets World and I thought it was such a smart idea. We always said that we are going to send photos back but….the idea of bringing a printer is genius!“

Lara said of Dog Meets World, “The only issue for us was that on top of everything else we had to do during our time in the village it was a little time consuming but it didn’t matter cause it was so great!” Thanks to all the new student phodographers from buildOn!