HALFWAY through a 12-hour Land Rover journey between Addis Ababa and Nekemte, Okehampton youngster Amy Wilson spotted a group of walkers through her camera lens. They were men from an Ethiopian village, carrying a woman to hospital. They still had 15 miles to go. In February and March, 19-year-old Amy Wilson, from Okehampton, travelled in Ethiopia with Dr Alexis Taylor of the Exeter-Ethiopia Link. Fresh from A-level photography, she took her camera with her and returned with nearly 1,000 photos documenting her remarkable trip. A selection of large-scale prints of these photographs is now on display, and for sale, in an exhibition entitled Ethiopia Through One Eye, at The Pickled Walnut Restaurant in Okehampton until the first week of July. The Exeter-Ethiopia Link has an aim to encourage and support small but sustainable development projects ? enabling communities and individuals to help themselves. They also want people in Devon to understand the reality of life in Ethiopia. They are a voluntary organisation and are happy to receive new members. Amy Wilson is a gap year student from Exeter College, who has a place to begin a development studies course at the University of East Anglia in September this year. During her gap year travels, Amy had previously visited South Africa where she went to 20 schools in and around Cape Town and learnt lots of South African songs as well as passing on many English songs. Amy said travelling into the townships while in South Africa with fellow young members of the folk music organisation The Wren Trust had been useful in preparing her for the trip to Ethiopia. Amy said: ?The countries are quite different, in South Africa, you have got rich and poor next to each other, because the spectre of apartheid remains. In Ethiopia, it is poor and poorer.? However, she said despite the poverty, Ethiopians were happy. ?People are still happy and smiling and everyone is so friendly,? she added. Amy also spent some time in Italy teaching English to primary school children, largely through the medium of music. Amy said the pictures were all natural shots, taken in a variety of locations to capture everyday life in the country. ?Some were taken in the city, some in the rural areas, in hospitals and in schools. A lot of the time I was snapping away, but I didn?t want to just see Ethiopia through the camera lens. I wanted to take it in completely,? Amy said. Former Okehampton College pupil Amy said she was excited as this was the first time she had ever had her own exhibition. ?I took my camera along because I wanted to justify being on the trip. I didn?t think it would necessarily lead to an exhibition. I just hoped I would get some shots which Exeter-Ethiopia Link could use in their publicity. I?m really pleased because even though I say so myself, a couple of them are really good,? she said. Amy said it had been difficult to choose which images to use: ?Some of them I couldn?t bring myself not to put in. There is one of a boy who had a cancer in his eye. It was quite advanced and that boy is going to lose his sight in that eye. It?s a shocking image, but there are happier ones too.? With a population of approximately 73 million people, Ethiopia has fewer than 100 ophthalmologists or ?eye doctors? ? a ?shocking ratio? said Amy. Due to restricted access to safe water for keeping eyes clean, eye infections and diseases are common. On top of this, losing one?s eyesight can make life very difficult in the agriculture and labour based economy of Ethiopia. All profits from the sale of the photographs in Ethiopia Through One Eye will go towards the Exeter-Ethiopia Link?s eye clinic project. Amy said this project aimed to set up a dedicated eye hospital in a remote area around 12 hours drive from Addis where ophthalmologists trained in the capital could base themselves to treat patients. She said although she had been in Ethiopia for three weeks she wished she had been able to stay longer. The new exhibition is the latest in a number of regular art and photographic shows as well as music nights to be hosted at the restaurant.
