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Donna
M. Guenther, M.D. is a photographer, physician, and AIDS
activist.
She sailed around the world with Semester
At Sea as a medical consultant on the Fall ’87 voyage
and again in Spring 2000. That initial journey launched her
interest in photo journalism as she began focusing a keen
eye on the cultures unfolding before her lens. She
subsequently volunteered with the Prasad Project Eye Camps
in India where she did both medical screening and photography. In
2003, she accompanied a Tibetan doctor on a pilgrimage to
Tibet and the following year, joined the first women’s
delegation for Save the Children, to empower women’s
projects in Ethiopia and Uganda. Always carrying a
camera, Donna has traveled to India so frequently it has become her second home. In 2005,
she received a fellowship from the Global Arts Village to
document HIV/AIDS
projects and has since returned annually
in follow-up and
continuation of that work. In 2009, as a photography consultant, Donna accompanied staff of Alliance, India and together they documented 40 families of children infected and/or affected by HIV, representative of 64,000 such families targeted for support from the Global Fund through Alliance, India. The families were re-visited in March 2010 and their progress over one year was monitored.
Donna’s photographs have been published,
appeared on the UNICEF calendar and exhibited nationally
and internationally. In Oct. 2005, collages of HIV/AIDS projects
were presented on behalf of MGR University, Chennai at the
5th International AIDS Conference, India. In 2006,
her photographs were exhibited in San Francisco and Oakland,
California; Tucson, Arizona and at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. In
2007, some of her photographs were included in an International Women’s Exhibition in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the Denver International Invitational Exhibit, Denver International Airport
and in Abstractions at the Center for Fine
Art Photography in Colorado.
She has practiced medicine in various San
Francisco Bay area settings including Kaiser Permanente,
UCSF and Oakland Children’s Hospital where she was
Chief of Immunology and Allergy.
Throughout her travels, Donna has been
continually reminded of the devastating impact of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic on the global community. She is
committed to making a difference through her photographs by educating the public and by
raising funds for non-profit organizations providing HIV/AIDS prevention
and treatment in India.
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