AGA SZYDLIK
Minority Report | Twa people
Batwa (Twa) or Pygmies are an endangered group of people around Echuya Forest Reserve in Kisoro and Kabale Districts of South-Western Uganda. The Batwa are believed to have migrated from the Ituri Forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo in search of wild animals to hunt, hence the name Kisoro, literally meaning “the area occupied by wild animals.”
The Batwa live in small huts mainly made from sticks and grass (Wiki).
Origins | Twa were forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers based in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa, and are widely accepted as the original inhabitants of the area. The Batwa were once recognized as the owners of the high mountain forest. The men used to hunt and collect honey and other forest products, which were exchanged for village goods, while the women gathered vegetables, mushrooms, and fruits as well as work for local farming peoples. At the end of the 19th century, when what is now southwest Uganda was part of the Kingdom of Rwanda, the Batwa, like their counterparts in Rwanda, Kivu, and Burundi, were valued as court entertainers and soldiers.
ENDANGERED PEOPLE
The drastic change to their lifestyle, along with their small number and despised status, has brought the Ugandan Batwa close to being wiped out: in 2006, the Uganda Land Alliance for Coalition of Pastoral Civil Society Organizations (COPACSO) warned that the few thousand Batwa (Twa) of Uganda were in danger of extinction. The organization’s report warned of starvation and loss of social cohesion among desperate Batwa who lost their homes in the Bwindi Impenetrable Game Park when this became a World Heritage Site for preservation of endangered mountain gorillas in 1992. Since the Batwa have consistently been displaced from their land, leaving most homeless.
AGA SZYDLIK
Aga Szydlik is a scientist and a documentary photographer based in Cambridge, USA.
Her work mainly focuses on off-beaten path travels, tribal and documentary photography, conservation, exploration of heritage sites, and documentation of indigenous rituals and beliefs. She actively supports human rights and conservation efforts. Aga’s assignments involve both freelance work and collaborations with various non-profit organizations.
Aga is passionate about exploring the world, and her journeys enable her to be wholly immersed in the cultures she documents. Through her photography, she aims to tell the story of people she meets during her travels in a relevant, expressive fashion.
Aga began her professional journey by experimenting with fight photography when she was living in Thailand and started documenting Muay Thai. During her extensive travels, Aga was able to have many adventures and to explore SE Asia. Eventually, years later, her journey has led her to Indonesia and South Africa.
Aga shares her passion for photography with her love for science; she is a scientist with a background in molecular biology and virology. Over the years, her projects ranged from the development of human Biotherapeutics and vaccines to developing novel ways to mitigate the protection of the environment.
