PNDP

Many small businesses in San Juan, Puerto Rico, became unprofitable for months due to damages caused by Hurricane Maria and due to the subsequent decline in tourism. As a result, thousands of business owners left the island.

San Juan, Puerto Rico was the destination for this year’s summer workshop and the last activity of the Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice, which is now concluding its eight years of educating visual journalists and storytellers at Tufts.

I’ve been in Johannesburg for almost three months now, working for the Mail & Guardian media house as a documentary photography fellow. Working for the Mail & Guardian has entailed creating visuals for the coverage of daily news stories in addition to pursuing stories of personal interest in and around Johannesburg.

Going into this experience, I knew I would face many challenges in the creation of this documentary project; I had been a student in the IGL’s Program for Narrative and Documentary Practice fall class, and throughout the planning and budgeting process, I had had time to prepare mentally and hypothetically for much of the seemingly inev