Kids stretch their world

Briana Harris studies the faces of children on the computer screen. The 10-year-old from West Covina Christian School settles on a serious-looking boy named Jamal, who lives in Kenya, then polls her friends for an appropriate question. She could ask about his life or his home or dreams, but she settles on this: “What is your mother’s name?”

Through a program called Bridges to Understanding, the e-mail will arrive in Kenya, ready for Jamal’s response. The program links children from developing nations with other children around the world through the Internet. With the help of mentors who also serve as translators, children share their thoughts, stories and photographs.

The program was founded 3 1/2 years ago by photographer Phil Borges of Mercer Island, Wash., and is being introduced to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana along with an exhibition of children’s portraits he has taken over the last 15 years.

Twelve program stations have been established at sites including the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala, India, the Arctic Circle, the Navajo Nation in Arizona and Seattle. Upon the exhibition’s conclusion on Oct. 24, a station will be created in the Bowers Kidseum.

“Children are children around the world,” says Borges, who has traveled to some of the world’s most remote areas photographing for books and human rights causes. “When I go into a group of people, if it’s a remote tribe or a little village in the Third World, the first people I meet are the kids. The kids are the most open, always. Kids are more open than adults in every culture.”

And with children, you can start a conversation just about anywhere. Through the program’s website, www.bridgesweb.org, Hiroshi in Seattle asks Ayeshah, who lives in another part of Seattle, “Have you ever hit your head with a vacuum, ‘cause I have?”

Zach, who attends a private school for gifted students, begins his conversation with Gisela of Peru with, “Do you raise chickens?”

Borges, a former orthodontist, says the program -- like his photographs -- is an attempt to diminish cultural barriers, and while children may be children, portraits in the exhibition describe how their lives are very different.

Tesin is 12 and lives in a remote part of the Philippines. Her husband is 15. They have built a home but will immediately abandon it if a member of their family dies, or if a honeybee enters their home.

Abi Gul is 7 and lives in a small village in Pakistan. Her eyes are soft and deep. A single braid wraps across her forehead and behind her right ear. When she was 5, her father was killed by a bomb that was thrown into the family’s home, the result of his opposition to logging in the area. In Kalash culture, trees are sacred.

The photos are black and white, but through a toning process, Borges adds skin color. With each print, he includes information about the person.

“We in the developed world think in terms of abstractions,” Borges says. “I try to present them as people who have names and ages and families.”

Accompanying the exhibit is a 10-minute video created by students and mentors from Peru addressing tourism and its effects on a community near Machu Picchu. The video was shown in May at the United Nations’ “Open Forum on Indigenous Peoples.”

In time, participants will be asked to address issues of universal concern, such as poverty and the environment. From his travels, Borges has learned there is always common ground, even between those of the most disparate cultures.

He once traveled to Irian Jaya, a remote part of Indonesia, and came upon a group of men with feathers in their hair and bones through their noses, their bodies smeared with pig grease.

One of the men approached him, stood in front of him, examined his hiking attire and started laughing.

Says Borges: “Then I looked at him and thought to myself, ‘My God, look at this guy,’ and we both started laughing. We caught each other’s eyes, and there was a look of recognition. We were laughing at the same thing, really. We’re just in these different shells.”

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Bridges to Understanding

Where: Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana

When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Bowers Kidseum open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday- and Sunday and 3-5 p.m. Thursday.

Price: $14 adults; $8 seniors (62 and older) and students with ID; $6 children 5-11; younger than 5, free.

Contact: (714) 567-3600; www.bowers.org

Duane Noriyuki can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.