EducationInfographics
A new perspective: 10 years as a domestic helper in Hong Kong, now a globe-trotting photographer
A 'Grand' Mother: Perryville, Missouri resident Thelma Nations, 70, lives the Catholic life. A mother of 11 and grandmother of 15, she practices Catholic teachings daily. She thought she was done raising kids, but everything changed in 2002 when she learned that her son was not able to care for his two children. Her love for her family led her to legally adopt them even though it means starting over again. Thelma Nations reads the Bible on her living room chair. She reads every day. Photos: Xyza Bacani
A 'Grand' Mother: Perryville, Missouri resident Thelma Nations, 70, lives the Catholic life. A mother of 11 and grandmother of 15, she practices Catholic teachings daily. She thought she was done raising kids, but everything changed in 2002 when she learned that her son was not able to care for his two children. Her love for her family led her to legally adopt them even though it means starting over again. Thelma Nations reads the Bible on her living room chair. She reads every day. Photos: Xyza Bacani

Xyza Bacani captures the life of Missouri resident Thelma Nations who adopted her son's children when he gave up parental rights in 'A 'Grand' Mother'

Raquel Carvalho
Raquel Carvalho

Xyza Bacani, 28, travelled to the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Hong Kong this month. She could hardly imagine earlier this year that she would fly to so many places within just a few days.

Bacani worked for about 10 years as a domestic helper in Hong Kong, until she was awarded the 2015 Magnum Foundation Human Rights Fellowship in New York. Immersed in the life of her photo subjects and with no fixed abode, Bacani is seeing her dream of becoming a photographer turn into reality.

“The scholarship was a really big deal. It changed my life,” she said. Bacani flew to New York in May, leaving behind her life as a helper in Hong Kong. “It was very educational. I became a better person and a better photographer ... It opened my world,” she said, referring to the six-week scholarship.

Bacani, who is from the Philippines, is now back in Hong Kong to participate in today’s preview of the photo exhibition Behind Concrete Walls: Images of Women Migrants, which will open to the public from November 22 to 29 at the KUC Space in Jordan.

The exhibition features 20 images, which portray the condition of women in Bethune House, a non-governmental organisation that runs two shelters, providing refuge and counselling to female migrant workers in Hong Kong. The photos taken over a year are described by Bacani as “empowering and educational”.

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