The lives of former drug addicts are displayed through the lens of photographer Pham Hoai Thanh in an exhibition entitled Face-to-Face with Drugs which opened yesterday in Hanoi.
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| Choice to change: Photos taken by Pham Hoai Thanh capture the lives of addicts who have overcome drug use and started a new life. |
"I objectively reported daily lives of former drug addicts who I met," Thanh said. "I was very moved when I witnessed the discrimination and challenges they faced in their lives."
Thanh spent a year working with 50 people who had overcome or still used illegal substances.
In their own words, the subjects tell how they first became involved with drugs, about their battles against the long-lasting effects of addiction and their desire to create a new life as productive members of their families and communities.
"Stories are neither intended to lay blame nor to excuse the subjects\' decisions," Thanh said. "But in today\'s society, where drug use cannot be completely controlled, the perspectives from this book will hopefully help readers develop a fuller, more objective understanding of this issue."
Stories celebrate the support the addicts have received from loved ones and groups throughout civil society, via behaviour-change communication outreach, counselling, needle and syringe exchanges, methadone maintenance therapy, and the invaluable help from others in the community of people who use drugs.Photos are presented in four groups, representing different periods in a drug user\'s life.
Starting by the way drug users are led to drugs,Thanh takes viewers through the pain and loss that drug users have to endure because of drugs, and the struggle of drug users and their families in the battle against a drug\'s deadly effects. The stories end with the pictures of people who have overcome drug use and are trying to live and to make up for their lost time as a way to express their gratitude to life and their loved ones.
Centre executive director Khuat Thi Hai Oanh said he hoped that Face-to-Face with Drugs would not only help reduce the stigma and discrimination against drug users but would also encourage them to live more positively and let them know that they are not alone in the fight against the negative effects of drugs.
The five-day exhibition marks International Drugs Prevention Day on June 25. It has been organised by the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives and sponsored by the US Agency for International Development.
This is the first photo show on the lives of drug users in Vietnam and the third exhibition of Thanh about HIV and drug prevention.
The exhibition will run until June 15 at Exhibition House, 29 Hang Bai Street, Hanoi.
