Your life can change when you meet the right people

Is there a better story than this man’s? I met Paul Ninson randomly eight years ago when I asked for his photograph in Accra, Ghana. Afterwards I interviewed him and learned that he was a 28-year-old single father, struggling to make a living as a photographer. During our conversation he pulled out his laptop and showed me his portfolio of documentary work. The photos were gorgeous. But most impressively, Paul had created this body of work under conditions of extreme hardship. Rarely had I encountered such willpower. The HONY Patreon community sponsored Paul to come to New York for a year and study at the International Center of Photography. During this year, without telling anyone, he collected thousands of African photography books by soliciting donations from bookstores and private libraries. Before returning to Africa he asked if I could help raise money for him to build Ghana’s first photography library. (Actually, he didn’t ask. But every time we were together he pulled out his notebook and started sketching pictures of his library.) When Paul’s story was shared on Humans of New York, thousands of you chose to contribute to Paul’s dream and $1.2 million was raised to seed Dikan. What has happened since then has been eye-popping. In two short year Paul has created the largest visual library in Africa, with 30,000 volumes. Dikan now has 70 employees and just opened its second campus--- a three-story building which houses Dikan’s new Awo Institute. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, Awo’s modern labs are currently digitizing Africa’s oral and photographic history at a rate of 5,000 items a day. The new campus also houses the Ahenfie Museum, where African history is shared in African ways: through live storytelling, performances, and immersive experiences. Paul’s a bit hard to get a hold of these days because he’s always meeting with fancy people. But he stopped by to visit me on his way to Philadelphia, where he’s working closely with the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Paul, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we cannot be more proud or amazed at the leader you’ve shown yourself to be.

Copied: Humans Of Newyork