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(Photo by Barbara Peacock)Photo District News
Lifestyle and kids photographer Barbara Peacock of Westford, Massachusetts spent several weeks last summer teaching art and photography in Cambodia. Peacock is the founder of a nonprofit organization called The Nightingale Project, which helps the disadvantaged through art. Her partner on this project is Tamison Rose, an artist and former Westford School Committee member. They spent two weeks teaching art and photography to children of orphanages near Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
Peacock was teaching drawing and photography to children at a Buddhist temple in Westford, and the idea of Cambodia seemed to be a perfect starting place for The Nightingale Project. When the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, their systematic genocide and social engineering killed approximately 85 percent of all professional and intellectual people. "If you wore eye glasses you were considered an intellectual and you might be killed. We felt that teaching art in such a country would be greatly needed and welcomed, and it was," says Peacock. Peacock and Tamison were able to raise donations from local Westford residents, including a $500 donation from monk Ajhan David of Wat Buddhahavana of Massachusetts, the Buddhist temple in Westford.
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