Beauty and tragedy: PWS&D photographer captures life in Africa from a wheelchair.

Being a paraplegic doesn't stop Carl Hiebert from flying his own plane around the world, and taking hundreds of photographs. His confinement to a wheelchair, though challenging, actually enables him to take better shots--especially in sensitive situations. "I'm seen as a curiosity rather than a potential threat," said Hiebert. "People are more willing to receive me. It's a more gentle approach."

Such an advantage is useful when photographing adults dying of AIDS and their orphaned children in Africa. His trips to countries devastated by the disease led him to a partnership with Presbyterian World Service and Development.

Last April, Hiebert photographed the effects of AIDS in Malawi to be used by PWS&D. "AIDS is our biggest pandemic ever," he said. "There is a moral imperative for all of us to make some kind of response to that, and to recognize the sheer magnitude of what kind of crisis this is."

The pictures he took during his trip demonstrate his knack for catching people at their most real. "The photos he shot do more than tell the story of AIDS," said Karen Plater, communications coordinator at PWS&D. "They capture the rich vibrancy of life in Malawi. He takes the statistics and transforms them into people's lives... He captures the heart of them."

Hiebert understood the immediacy of the situation when he visited Uganda in February, where he photographed a young boy living with AIDS. When Hiebert returned home in March, he got news that the boy had died. "None of us should have any preconceived ideas of how we can fix the problem. The responsibility we have is to go to these places and identify the mavens who are there and empower them to make the changes," he said. "We're dealing with behavioural change, and such finely-tuned cultural nuances, that it takes indigenous people to adequately respond."

Dubbed one of Canada's top-10 adventurers by the Canadian Press, his commitment to various charities began when he flew an open cockpit ultra-light aircraft across Canada in 1986 to raise money for the Canadian Paraplegic Association. Five years prior, Hiebert broke his back in a hang-gliding accident. The life-changing incident gave Hiebert a new appreciation for people struggling to overcome huge challenges.

For Hiebert, who traces his roots to a Southern Ontario Mennonite community, perfecting his craft is a life's work. Despite three coffee-table books, countless world excursions, and a quarter century of experience, Hiebert admits there is a lot left to learn. "I'm still working on it," he said. "I've never got to the point where I can call myself a photographer.

The photos displayed on the following pages demonstrate Hiebert's remarkable ability to capture life at its most vulnerable and beautiful moments. "It's an intuitive thing," he said. "It's about building a relationship and earning the trust of your subjects."

Carmen Bezner Kerr plays with a next-door neighbour. Carmen's morn, Rachel is a Canadian who has worked in Malawi at PCC-supported Ekwendeni Hospital. "This shows totally integrated play and acceptance--no thought is given to their difference," said Hiebert. "It's one of the more moving photographs for me."

Almost half of Malawi's population are children under 14, many of whom are orphaned and/or heads of their families. But, kids are still kids. "Kids play soccer everywhere," said Hiebert. "They never seem to tire of it."

Three generations--grandmother on the left, her daughter on the right, and granddaughter in between--are an example of what AIDS is doing to African nations. Although the granddaughter has not yet been tested, the fact that her young mother (and grandmother) is infected does not bode well. "They had a desk in their home that was their only piece of formal furniture," said Hiebert. "The mother and the grandmother went on at length of how great it is to have the support workers visit. They said, 'they can't bring much, but they bring themselves', and that really means a lot to them."

In some African countries, people are being buried every day because of AIDS. Teachers, health care workers and police are badly-hit categories. "In Lilongwe [Malawi's capital city], the best part of one street was mostly coffin makers," said Hiebert. "It's big business, and it's hard to keep up with the demand."

Children often contract HIV through mother-to-child transmission, while otherwise healthy children end up orphans when their parents die from the disease. To date, 13 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Ekwendeni Hospital in Malawi runs an orphan feeding program for children left to fend for themselves. "It looks like the little girl on the right is two, going on 30. It's uncanny, how they can sleep in comfort while hundreds of kids are around them, clamouring for lunch. And the other kids are respectful of their space," said Hiebert. "It's a very strong image."

A man in a rural area in the advanced stages of AIDS is visited by a support counsellor. The white cream on his lips is to relieve the sores on his mouth. "The support worker brought him a blanket and he was ever so thankful," said Hiebert. "I always feel humbled and honoured that people let me come into their lives and take pictures, when they don't know what they'll be used for. I try to capture them with a sense of dignity."

Women are the hardest hit by the AIDS crisis. They contract the disease at a disproportionate rate compared to men, and must care for family members who are infected. Here, a single mom infected with AIDS uses music to deal with her reality.

"Her way of dealing with AIDS and poverty was to make up and sing songs about Jesus and hope," said Hiebert. "She sang several songs for me. It was a very powerful experience."

Moms in Malawi are used to multi-tasking. They usually carry the burden of caring for the home and family, as well as providing extra income through farming or selling goods in the market. Here, a woman with AIDS carries one child on her back, while she grinds corn and washes another baby. "I was impressed by her spirit and her smile," said Hiebert, "and her will to carry on."

Two men from a drama group in Ekwendeni teach children about HIV. A young girl watches with delight. "What caught me about this situation was the patch of light falling just on her," said Hiebert. "It's been said that the subject is nothing--lighting is everything. The subject almost becomes secondary."

'We have never, in human history, been ready for such an onslaught of orphans. There's absolutely no precedent anywhere in the annals of humankind that has given us a sense of what to do about millions of orphans, in country after country. These are lovely kids, like every kid everywhere in the world, but they feel bewildered and abandoned and angry and sometimes antisocial and they crave nurture and love like you cannot believe.

All quotes from Stephen Lewis, UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa 

'And the terrible thing about orphans in Africa, as a consequence of AIDS, is that they're not orphaned when their parents die, they become orphans while their parents are dying. They try to find a new mat for the mother to lie on. And then they stand in the huts and they watch their mothers die and I've never been able to understand how you repair the emotional structure of those kids, how they function later on.

'You go into the pediatric wards, every 10 minutes there is an anguished howl that sears the psyche and you turn around and there's a woman kneeling by a cot, four and five infant kids in the cot, a combination of AIDS and famine in that particular situation.

And she's weeping, and the nurse comes in with a white sheet and covers up the infant babe and takes the child away.

'If you have prevalence rates between the ages of 15 and 49 of 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 30 per cent, year after year after year, it eats away at the capacity of the country. You lose the productive age groups between 15 and 49.

'The figures are reasonably well-known but they always stun me a little, even in the repetition, that of the 25 million people living with the virus in aub-Saharan Africa between the ages of 15 and 49, 58 per cent are women. And if you narrow the category to the ages of 15 to 24 where there are 6 to 8 million people living with the virus, 75 per cent are young women and girls.

'And I thought to myself, has the world gone mad? How is this possible at the beginning of the 21st Century? How have we come to this? How have we permitted it to happen?