A small orphanage is hidden behind towering buildings alongside Kathmandu's bustling ring road. Unlike several international sponsored orphanages, this local-based one is severely neglected in funding and citizen donations. Simply put, it is 14 children living in a small house.
To make matters worse, their primary caregiver, who flaunts herself as a philanthropist, is only at the house for a few minutes a day or drops by when introducing potential donors. As a result, the children spend day after day unable to leave the compounds of the orphanage for months at a time, nor have they been able to attend school. Despite such stifling limitations and restrictions, the children still find happiness and security within each other. It is only a matter of time as they get older and begin to recognize the reality of their situation.
Similar stories such as this reside all over Nepal and across the globe. These are the children that nobody knows.
Goh Iromoto grew up in Toronto, Ontario and is currently studying Human Geography at the University of British Columbia. Earlier on, he ventured into the scene of film and video editing where he began his young career as a documentary filmmaker. Eventually, he became an assistant editor in advertising post-production in 2005.
However, before committing to a possible lifetime career, Goh made the life changing decision to travel abroad. Despite the advent of the Internet and other modern forms of media, he still saw a world that was significantly different from those represented back home. Unique socio-cultural details such as the way people eat, talk, and even wash themselves were all missing gaps which the media often overlooks when depicting a foreign culture.
While his ten months overseas he also further discovered his interest in photography, particularly towards the idea of using it as a tool to communicate social and humanitarian issues and occurrences. Inspired by renowned photographers such as Nachtwey, Salgado, and Henri-Cartier Bresson, and young photographers such as Dominic Nahr, Goh seeks to further bridge the lack of visual communication between those of the developing world to those of the developed.
