(Nigel Barker LLC) Nigel Barker and Unik Ernest, founder of Edeyo, outside the school in Bel-Air, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Nigel Barker Turns His Lens on Haiti
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OCTOBER 27, 2009
Giancinta Pace, MSNBC

Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with fashion photographer, "America’s Next Top Model" judge, filmmaker, actor and former model Nigel Barker. Barker has recently honed his photography skills by traveling around the world to shoot footage for multiple films that document the need for awareness of different causes.
A recently released film, "Haiti: Hunger and Hope," was a joint effort with Barker’s friend, Unik Ernest, who is the president and founder of Edeyo. The not-for-profit organization aims to rebuild run-down schools in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and provide students with learning materials and nutritional support.
Barker also traveled to Tanzania to film "Generation Free," a documentary about efforts by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundations to create a generation free of HIV. He has also done a film for the Humane Society called “A Sealed Fate?” on the brutal hunting of seals.
Question: How did you find out about the Edeyo Foundation and how did you become involved in the documentary?
Barker: I met Unik [Ernest] quite a while ago. I’ve known him for about, I would say some 12 years. Over the course of that time, he had talked to me and discussed at length Haiti and the situation in Haiti. Obviously, being someone who travels, see the world, what have you, it's hard to believe that things are as bad as they are in Haiti. Then, a couple years ago he started the Edeyo Foundation.
At the time, I was just like, “What are you going to do? How can you help? What possibly could you do?” It seems like such an extraordinary problem. His idea was to start the school with his mother. I kind of watched him. I’m already involved in many different charities and organizations, most of which are very big charities, like the Humane Society of the United States or the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
It was amazing to see what Unik was doing personally. I said to him after he’d been going for about a year, “Look, what I could do that would probably be most useful is use what I do. As a photographer and filmmaker, go down to Haiti with you and film for people to see what’s happening.”
We originally set out to go down to Haiti with him and at the time Anne Vincent from Vogue was coming. There was couple of different groups who were coming with us on this trip. Right before we went, the food riots [April of 2008] broke out around the world, specifically in Haiti they were very, very bad. They overthrew the government, there was widespread looting. The U.S. Embassy actually closed and the Canadian Embassy also closed, having been bombed. We were warned by the U.S. government not to go. That if we were to go, we would have no protection and that it would be foolhardy. At that point, obviously Vogue pulled out. Actually everyone pulled out. And we pretty much pulled out too. We said to Unik, “Look this is not the time. It’s too dangerous. I just don’t think its possible.”
He was obviously very upset, but understood. At the same time for me, it was really irritating. I thought to myself, we had already spent the various amounts of money to go and we also knew this was an important time to go down there. I spoke to various people who were in Haiti and I contacted other groups. I remember I finally spoke to a nun, who was about 70 years old, and she had just come back, right after the riots. She said to me, “Nigel, you know it’s a desperate situation down there, but there’s never been a time that they need you more than now. Yes, it’s difficult and it’s dangerous. But if you’re careful and smart. You’ll be fine. You just have to be street....”
So we thought, “Listen, OK we’ve got our tickets. We’re motivated. I’ve got my team, I’ve got my camera man.” I called Unik. I said “Unik, we’re going.” He went, “Really?” “We are going. So make it happen.” So a day later we got on the planes, went down there, and shot the film "Haiti: Hunger and Hope."
We were down there for five days and six nights. It was a very intense experience. We had guns pulled on us while we were there, which actually doesn’t appear in the film because we had to pull our cameras down in order to get the guns out of our faces. That was in the cemetery, ironically. I think someone was upset about the burial.
The soul and the crux of this film is that Haiti is in a very desperate situation yet there are the disenfranchised youth that are there, and of course they make up 50 percent of the population. Without education, half of them have no chance, but with education, through schools like Edeyo and not just people giving food but actually through the education that helps them build their own lives. It is possible to have a future.
Q: Is there one moment or image that stands out in your mind from your trip to Haiti?
Barker: It’s not the horror, it’s not the shock. Believe me, there are times when I wanted people to think, “Goodness, it looks stunning," but you can’t imagine how bad it smells right now. If this was a scratch-and sniff-TV you’d turn off for sure. But those moments aren’t the moments.
The moments that really stand out are how welcoming and how loving and how decent so many people were, in such diabolical situations. We had people smiling at us and welcoming us. At the school, Unik’s mother, who is, to be honest with you, like an angel. She really is one of the most extraordinary people. She’s taken in 11 orphans herself and she’s a 75-year-old woman. Her heart is just massive. To me, that’s the part that really makes it. I’ve traveled all over the world and it’s rarely the place that makes it for me. It’s almost always the people.
Q: Can you just explain how a project like this, in comparison to the work you do on television, how being in both worlds makes you feel?
Barker: I’m on television and I work on "America’s Next Top Model" and I work in the fashion industry and I’ve done that for 17 years, but there’s never been a time, personally, where I haven’t been motivated by the world around me. Even with fashion. Fashion for me is a means to an end. I’m passionate about it. But it doesn’t keep me up at night. It's not what I dream about. It’s not the future. It’s not anything for my children. That’s the real world and I think that’s what really rings my bell.
Personally, I get excited when I can actually make some kind of difference. I know that these are small steps. Through what I can do, which is taking photographs that hopefully can move people, because obviously with words you can wax poetic about just about anything and make people sort of perhaps potentially see something.
You can also feel like you are just spicing it up with an image. The viewer makes their own mind up. They can look at something and say, “Oh I don’t like that.” Or “I like that.” Or “That’s beautiful, that’s not beautiful.” I think that’s a very important tool. Especially with filmmaking. You can tell a story and show people and take them somewhere. For me, that is why these projects are so important.
Q: Do you have any plans to work with Edeyo in the future?
Barker: Absolutely. I still get letters from people who have seen the film. I got a letter just the other day from a lady whom I don’t know, who said she’d seen the film and that she’d donated $2,500 to the Edeyo Project because she was so moved. I get e-mails and letters on my blog, www.nigelbarker.tv/blog/, from the Haitian community at large saying, “Thank you.” You can’t help but still be involved.
My role isn’t so much to necessarily get involved with just Haiti and just do Haiti. I do what I can and I stick around whenever I can add any weight to it at all I do. I tend not to just be there for the sake of it.
Obviously for me, I would love to go down and shoot another film and sort of where they are at a couple of years from now or a year from now. See where the money people have raised and what a difference its made. I think what’s so important in these projects is that people see improvement, and they see results.
© 2008 msnbc.com
Reproduced with permission of MSNBC, from Nigel Barker turns lens on Haiti: Fashion photographer uses camera to raise awareness of poverty by Giacinta Pace, October 21, 2009; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
You can read the full interview in its original location and view more photos at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33403986/ns/us_news-giving/