© Christian Vium

Unlike AIDS, Malaria, or extreme poverty, human rights is an issue that everyone knows about, but rather not to talk about. That’s how Antropographia came about:

We believe images open up spaces that allow us to witness abuses forgotten by the media. And it is through this process of witnessing, that we provide the public an opportunity to dialogue, learn and take action on human rights issues.

Matthieu Rytz, whom I met at the Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap last year, enthusiastically shared me many aspects of human rights that I’m unaware of, he brought to light some details that are rarely seen in the media.

One of the problem, he revealed, is that many organizations, social activists, often lack the skills needed to help publicize their cases; writing, photography, filmmaking, social or even multimedia skills, are the basic tools in fighting this social-inequality-generated problem.

As part of their mission, Anthropographia has announced the winners for the 2011 Anthropographia Award for Human Rights. Congratulation to Christian Vium, winner of the Photo Essay category, and Chien-Chi Chang, whose multimedia work Escape from North Korea swooped the multimedia category title.