The haunting inspiration
behind Cayman Loves Children


By Guy P. Harrison,
founder of Cayman Loves Children

The Associated Press photograph at right is of an orphan boy in a Rwandan refugee camp. It was taken in 1995. The photo caught my attention and never let go.

As a journalist, disturbing images are nothing new to me. My morning routine includes browsing through the Associated Press photos for the day. The strange mix of images from all over the world is something I have never been able to make peace with. Photos of beautiful actresses waving golden awards and muscular men playing games for million dollar paychecks share space with children quietly dying of malnutrition or screaming in the middle yet another war or natural disaster.

Through my own camera I have witnessed many unforgettable sights. I once knelt along a river bank in India, for example, and photographed a dog as it ate the corpse of a boy. In Nairobi, I watched a girl far too small for her age dig through a mound of garbage in search of a meal. I slowly inhaled the thick burnt air inside a mud hut in Ecuador while a little girl stared at me as if I was an alien from another world.

I was.

There were many moments during my travels through six continents that I felt sad about the world's inequalities and the terrible circumstances so many children are born into.

I was sad...and then I moved on to my next destination.

Something about this one photo of a Rwandan boy touched me in a new way. With no reason or purpose in mind, I folded it up, stuck it in one of my desk drawers and forgot about it.

Over the years the picture occasionally surfaced from the depths of my chaotic desk. And each time I relived the discomfort of looking at this child.

Cayman Loves Children is a small attempt to answer that boy's cry from so far away.

We may be strangers, but he is a child in my family, the human family. I care about him, and I believe that you do as well.

All that we ask of you is a few dollars to help children like this boy. For the fortunate ones like us, a few dollars is a magazine or a movie ticket. For them, a few dollars is life.

Please give. Let's show the world that Cayman does indeed love children.