Orphaned by Aids is an interactive narrative written by Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times. In this powerful piece, Carolyn Cole unveils the grim reality of an epidemic that is sweeping across the poorest region of Africa-AIDS. According to Cole, Swaziland has the world’s highest known rate for HIV. With this statistic, it proves to have a devastating impact on the hundreds of thousands of children who are left orphaned due to this horrific illness.
Cole does a magnificent job in setting the mood in this interactive piece. The ambiance of African spirituals playing in the background along with the use of dark and deep colors of red and black helps to display the tone of pain and despair that lies in the hearts of the orphaned children. The carefully selected sound bites of the voices of surviving family members as well as the close-ups in the isolated pictures, gives the audience a sense of guilt knowing what these families have to confront on a daily basis. Her tone throughout the piece is very sobering. She does a great job of narrating the impact of the children’s lives that have been forever changed due to the death of thier loved ones.
Although this piece was very well written, I would have liked to have seen more photos and images of the children in their communities. Also, it would have been more insighful for her to have followed the life of one or two children who have been affected by this tragic disease. And, even though the pictures she choose to illustrate her work helped to tell a very compelling story, the inability for the audience to select a photo in which subtitled its meaning, made them less powerful.
In conclusion, I think this piece does capture the message that Carolyn Cole wanted to present. Her use of various techniques along with her ability to capture the voice of the orphaned children allowed this work to have a very profound effect.
