this project follows photographers brian hill (amsterdam, the netherlands) and stan engelbrecht (cape town, south africa) as they complete weekly assignments they set for themselves.

brian hill

reber, and his good friend ergu, at his home in the hague, netherlands.

reber is a refugee from zakho, koerdistan. he entered the netherlands illegally and immediately applied for political asylum (at schiphol airport). he was put through

'the system', which eventually denied him the right to stay. reber stayed anyway,

spent time as an illegal immigrant, working and living illegally, studying and learning dutch. nine years later, reber has a dutch passport, lives in the hague with his dutch girlfriend, works at the UAF (www.uaf.nl), helping refugee students, and pays tax.

i asked him what he would like me to say on the site about the picture or about refugees. he said something like, "i think a system is failing when highly educated people are picking tomatoes. we should help refugees find work they are suited for.

if 'the system' is personalized, refugees can become a great resource that will benefit the netherlands, or any host country."

reber and ergu (a refugee from northern turkey) both speak perfect dutch, have a good sense of humor and are happy to be living and working in holland. it was nice to meet them.

stan engelbrecht

elients, bruno and bonel mfoutou, maitland, cape town, south africa

since he could remember the last thing bruno mfoutou wanted to do was

join the congolese army, pick up a gun and start killing. in 1997, when bruno

was 24, he was working as a waiter and his girlfriend elients was pregnant with

their first boy. then that same year bruno’s father was brutally killed during a rebel attack. bruno knew that they had to get out of the congo. but with elients heavily pregnant bruno was forced to leave by himself. he had saved up some money and bought a plane ticket to johannesburg, south africa. he planned to find work in johannesburg and send for elients and his infant son as soon as possible. but life in south africa was much harder than anticipated. the locals don’t take well to foreigners competing with them for employment and so began a cycle of underpaid jobs and exploitation. by 2003 bruno had moved to cape town and was earning enough to pay for elients to join him. their first born had to stay behind with bruno’s eldest brother, with whom he still lives today (bruno has never met his eldest son). elients and bruno had another son, bonel, two-and-a-half years ago. they are very happy to live in south africa and would never want to return the congo, even though they have no south african friends and they constantly have to re-apply for their refugee permits.

when i first met bruno he introduced himself as a nigerian. when he

admitted later that he was in fact from congo, i asked him why he had lied.

he said, “ha, ha! everyone is scared of the nigerians. foreigners will

always introduce themselves as nigerian if they don’t want someone

to mess with them!”