How it all began...

Jonathan Crown and Mohammad in Harar

Towards the end of a long and arduous photographic journey in east Africa which had taken him the length and breadth of Ethiopia, Jonathan Crown travelled to the predominantly Muslim town of Harar in the east, close to the Somali border.

It was late afternoon on another hot and dusty day in the bustling streets around the market. A beggar approached him, hand out, asking for money. Unusually, he wore a veil.

Jonathan passed him by, but as he walked on, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the boy's veil lower slightly. What he saw in that instant changed his life forever.   

The boy had a big hole where his right cheek and nose were missing. He had no functioning lips. Jonathan was at once disgusted by the horrific sight before him and profoundly moved. Immediately he gave the boy some money, but on turning his gaze for an instant, the boy vanished into the crowd. Jonathan returned to his hotel deep in thought.

The sight of the boy’s face would not leave him. He had never encountered a poor soul like this before in all his travels. But he remembered a similarly afflicted boy from South America who was bought over to the West for treatment some year ago, ‘The Boy David’. He came to the public's attention when a TV documentary made by Desmond Wilcox followed the progress to rebuild his face. If Desmond Wilcox could do it, so could Jonathan Crown!

Enlisting the help of the local hotel staff, a search party was organised that night to find the boy but it proved fruitless. A second search in the morning failed too but another boy with terrible head injuries was found.

Jonathan Crown took photographs of the 12-year-old, Fhami, another street boy. Before leaving for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Jonathan left money to some locals to find the other boy, take photographs and send them to the UK. He also left instructions to feed and clothe both boys, find them lodgings and take them to the local hospital for rudimentary medical assistance.

And so it was in April 2001 that Project Harar came into existence.

Within two weeks of his return to London, Jonathan had received the photographs of the boy lost in the market and some details of his desperate life. His name was Jemal and he was 14 years. If anything, the images were even more horrific than those he had seen in that instant when their paths had crossed.

To find out more about Fhami and Jemal's story, please visit 'our successes'.

Since Fhami and Jemal received treatment in 2002, the charity has quickly expanded its activities. The first four patients needed complex treatment overseas. We now partner with five hospitals in Addis Ababa, providing treatment for more patients, at a fraction of the cost. In 2010 we organised treatment for 575 patients with a variety of conditions, ranging from cleft lip/palate to burns. To read more about how we've evolved and changed, click here.