Belgium
I lead global communications in the nonprofit sector, specialising in education, gender, and development. I design strategies, write and edit content, and produce multimedia stories that make complex issues accessible and impactful.
MSc in Cyberpsychology
MA in Gender, Media & Culture
BA in Photography
Writing
Across sub-Saharan Africa, nearly nine in ten children reach the age of ten without being able to read a simple story or solve a basic maths problem. Research shows the foundations for tackling this crisis are built in the earliest years, when play helps children explore, problem-solve, and build confidence.
Climbing and jumping from the trees was everyday play for 15-year-old Peter and his friends in rural Zambia. But one afternoon, two years ago, what had always been a joyful game left him with an injured leg and a plaster cast. The walk to school, which was over an hour each way, suddenly was rendered impossible.
Why do we (and I include myself here) keep celebrating women for their strength? Why must they be extraordinary just to survive? A personal reflection on the challenges of the "empowered woman" narrative. A few years ago, I might have written this article differently.
In Lao Cai city, located in Vietnam's northern mountainous province of the same name, cooking instructor Phạm Thị Biên Thanh loads up her motorbike with pots, pans and utensils and prepares herself for a long and bumpy ride to reach her next group of students.
A joint discussion by VVOB and UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, Bangkok. Introduction Violence perpetrated against persons based on their sex, gender identity and expression happens all the time, in all corners of the globe. Violence is committed by individuals, state, and non-state actors - in school, at home, and at work, among other places.
Since April last year, school director Ros Pisey has seen her classrooms at Trapaing Trom Primary School in Siem Reap province converted into makeshift quarantine wards to house Covid-19 patients. Before it was converted to a quarantine centre, Trapaing Trom school had instructed 434 primary students in Grades 1-4.
Just after 10pm on February 12, Ariano* was frantically pedalling through the deserted streets of Dublin, trying to escape a mob of teenagers who were chasing after him. The 36-year-old Deliveroo courier says the mob was hiding behind a van and ambushed him as he passed, shouting racial slurs and hurling eggs and bottles.
Before a wave of Covid-19 infections swept Laos and shuttered its schools last month, 18-year-old volunteer PuYar would arrive at her remote village's primary school to a sea of smiles from up to 200 young students calling her name.
In the face of the global economic downturn, how might harnessing the untapped potential of ethnic minority youth not only build a more equitable and sustainable Vietnam, but also accelerate the country's economic recovery?
In KohnKaen village, a rural settlement in Vientiane province home to approximately 1,400 inhabitants mostly from ethnic minority groups, internet access and smartphones are a recent, but very welcome, arrival. Souphaphone Jalernsouk borrows her parents' smartphone whenever she can to listen to English music, even though she doesn't understand the words yet.
In the Cambodian frontier city of Poipet, many families who depended on cross-border trade with Thailand to earn a living are facing destitution as land crossings remain closed and Covid-19 shuts down much of the global economy While Poipet sits less than five kilometres from Thailand's Rong Kluea Market, it has long represented a vastly different world of comparative economic opportunity for those in the Cambodian border city.
Phou Mom's ability to put up or shut up during Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime most likely saved her life and the lives of her two children. However, since the fall of the brutal regime, she's done anything but and has made a name for herself as a woman demanding more, advocating for quality education and leading by example for many of the province's female teachers.
Laos has the highest rate of young brides in Southeast Asia - but education is the pathway to female empowerment says Christine Redmond, as she offers lessons and insights from Aide et Action's women's entrepreneurship project in the country Earlier this year, a report published by UNICEF to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action - the most comprehensive policy agenda for gender equality - described girls today as "unstoppable".
Despite the low rate of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Vietnam since 10 March 2020, Vietnamese schools remain shut and the country is feeling the pinch on its socio and economic development. Aide et Action, an international non-profit organisation, is working closely with schools in impacted areas to ensure the interests of the most marginalised children are put first.
Spokesperson/interviews
As people in Ireland settle down later than ever, more people in their 40s and 50s are turning to apps to find love online
Girls drop out of school at higher rates than boys in Zambia, due to pregnancy and marriage. The Digital School Project is helping them continue in education.
Photojournalist Paddy Dowling meets a teacher who lived through the horrors of Pol Pot, and the children for whom schooling is now a precious gift
Video
Producer and photographer for this part of the RESTORE video series which explores the restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems of Abu Dhabi.
Producer for the Cambodian episode of TV series Most Beautiful Landscapes, aired on Channel 4.
Photography
Recent weeks have seen some of the worst flooding in Cambodia for decades, leaving communities across the Kingdom submerged. What has resulted has been death and injury, displaced households, and major interruptions to the education of young students Even standing calf deep in murky water in his school's flooded yard, fish nipping past his ankles, Angk Snoul Primary School principal Chea Soung attested that the flood waters which had forced them to close in early October had now receded a lot.
When Cambodian schools closed due to Covid-19, poor internet access and a lack of minority language materials made distance learning in rural communities near impossible. But armed with a simple radio, children are rising above these obstacles to their education
For the past three months, Christine Redmond has been documenting the area of Posenchey in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, where non-profit organisations have been implementing emergency activities in response to the economic downturn caused by Covid-19. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, Cambodia's urban-poor communities have suffered severe economic shocks and fallen further into poverty.
My contribution to a group exhibition at A4 Sounds, Dublin where I held a artist studio 2017-2018. "Monto to Magdalene", my mixed media project on The Magdalene Laundries explored the relationship of place, religion and gender-based violence and its connection to Irish identity. The Magdalene Laundries were institutions run by the Catholic church to house fallen women – often society’s most vulnerable women and girls.
"In Real Life," my first solo photography exhibition, was a social commentary on the ways in which women are received in the world and how feminine identity is commodified, sold, and consumed.
Concert photography for The Snipe News, Canada, 2011-2013. (Before smartphones could take good quality images and music photographers still had jobs to do).