Hannah Walker was raised on the Downtown East Side. She has been a regular contestant in the Pivot Legal Society‘s Hope in Shadows photography contest, which documents life in the poorest neighborhood in Canada (life expectancy has been estimated as low as 33 years). Year after year, she and her friends would line up in Vancouver’s grey streets, often waiting in the rain for hours until they reached the head of the line and each received a disposable camera and an entry form. After the camera was full, they’d drop it off and wait, hopefully.

Last year, after many attempts, she won.

Hannah Walker is fourteen.

Hannah Walker knew it would be a good shot, but the 14-year-old never imagined her photo would be chosen to represent her Downtown Eastside community…it must have struck a chord with fellow DTES residents, who picked Walker’s photo over 41 other entries in a public vote at the Carnegie Community Centre. Says Pivot Communications Director Paul Ryan, “She’s telling people what it is like for her to live in this community and everyone saw a part of that in the photo. I think people tend to forget children and families live here too. It’s not just what you see driving through East Hastings… It’s hopeful and inspiring.”

You can see a younger Hannah and her buddies in this video, explaining why they’re such enthusiastic entrants. That’s the kind of excitement and optimism that is kids’ special magic and, as we can see from the fact that she did in fact win, it’s not always as sweetly misplaced as us old cynics might think.

When a child competes against adults, it can sometimes be a bruising experience, but much more often in my experience it’s a growth experience and kids, we learn daily, are much more resilient than adults are. Kids come in last and say, “The guy who won said he liked my shoelaces!”

And sometimes, we all win.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 7:55 am by raincoaster and is filed under Art, Diversions, The Cuteness Abounds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.