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Van Mon

In a remote area of the Vietnamese countryside exists a community of Leprosy victims. This is their story. There are currently 22 Villages like this in Vietnam and approximately 3,600 patients. Having survived a history of persecution, war and murder, they were exiled and forgotten by the outside world. These people live in little brick shacks with no insulation from the elements and poor sanitation. They have no means to improve their lives and solely rely on their caretakers. They receive most of their contact from the outside world from little broken radios and TVs. Subjected to poor healthcare and inadequate funding, these people continue to survive and live a life forced upon them by their ill fate.

Bop

Bop, 68, comes from a farmer’s family. At the age of 6 he contracted leprosy and his family brought him to Van Mon Village and he has lived there ever since.

Having lost both his eyes, all his fingers and toes, Bop still manages to take care of himself and go to church with very little help.

After Bop lost his eyesight, he went into a deep depression and didn’t interact or talk to anyone for 10 years. At the end of the 10 years, he found God and started to go to church and come out of his depression.

He thinks about his family a lot, which he doesn’t see much. He has some family that care about him, but majority of his family doesn’t want anything to do with him.

During an interview, I asked him why he goes to church everyday he said, “I had disease like this (leprosy), if in this life, I don’t have something to believe in for my next life, then I have nothing, except that I’m unlucky. My life now has become meaningless. So now I am living, looking forward to the next life. I don’t care anymore about my life now or dream anything in this life.”

Ehrin was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch mother and an American father. As a teen, his mother took him to the Middle East and Europe and opened his eyes to the world. After graduating from the University of Florida he set out to discover more. Ehrin lived and worked in New Zealand for a year and then traveled through Asia and eventually decided to live there.  A scientist by training and a lover of photography, he has managed to combine his passions and develop better integration of photography into new media and storytelling. Ehrin started studying photography after coming to Asia and being influenced by his experiences there. He has been working in SE Asia since 2005 and currently resides in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Ehrin not only works as a photographer but as a cameraman and multimedia producer. He has shown his work in Japan at four group exhibitions as well as being chosen to show his work at the 2008 Angkor Wat Photography Festival. He also recently completed work for Channel News Asia (MediaCorp). He is represented by Noi Pictures for both commercial and reportages.