Pulitzer Center Update

'The Guilfordian' on Amy Toensing Lecture at Hege Library

An elderly widow in her bed at Tarash Mandir, a short-stay home for young women and permanent facility for elderly widows in Vrindavan, India. This is the first and oldest home for widows in Vrindavan. Image by Amy Toensing. India, 2016.

An elderly widow in her bed at Tarash Mandir, a short-stay home for young women and permanent facility for elderly widows in Vrindavan, India. This is the first and oldest home for widows in Vrindavan. Image by Amy Toensing. India, 2016.

Pulitzer Center grantee and photojournalist Amy Toensing is slated to visit Guilford College on April 3 to speak on her reporting about widows in the Balkans, India, and parts of Africa. The Guilfordian's Abigail Bekele reported on the upcoming visit. 

In some parts of the world, a husband’s death brings his widow not only personal grief, but also a new life of extraordinary hardship, poverty, powerlessness, and abuse. Toensing partnered with fellow journalists Cynthia Gorney and Jessica Benko for this project, which appeared in National Georgraphic

Toensing has been a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine for over a decade and recently completed her 13th feature story for them. For the last three years, she has been documenting aboriginal Australia, which was published in the June 2013 issue of National Geographic. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and Time.

Jennie Knight, director of engaged teaching at the Center for Principled Problem Solving, invited Toensing to visit her class on April 3. 

"The class is about ethical leadership and social change innovation,” said Knight. “I am looking forward to hearing her story about how she is able to continue sharing important issues through photography. I am interested to hear how she is able to sustain herself over time and be able to continue to go into difficult situations to share the stories of many people that are not able to.”

Toensing's visit is part of the campus consortium partnership between Guilford College and the Pulitzer Center. 

“Guilford is a great liberal arts college,” said Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer. “It’s always very globally engaged and a college that puts a strong emphasis on arts. I think that students will find Toensing very inspiring as an example of what you can do with your career to make a difference in the lives of many people.”

Read the full article on The Guilfordian website