When Marielle Ness’s father, Lt. Col. James Ness, told her about the local kids who give him and other soldiers the thumbs up as they drive the streets of the green zone in Kabul, Afghanistan, it ignited an idea for a project.
She wanted to take pictures of Americans and people from around the world giving a thumbs up and send them back to Afghanistan to be given out to the kids in the streets of Kabul. But because the thumbs up can have a negative meaning in Middle Eastern cultures, she decided to just take pictures of people smiling. She named her project Operation Civilian Outreach.
“It is putting a face to the enemy; not all of us carry machine guns,” she said.
So far the political science junior has received 50 pictures of smiling faces from the United States, Germany, Holland, Great Britain, Kenya and Australia.
On Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., she will have a booth for Operation Civilian Outreach at the Culture Clash event at Lakeside Complex where she will be taking pictures of smiling faces. Ness said she hopes this will launch the project on the UF campus.
“It is really for the kids,” she said. “It shows someone that we are human, and we are a big international community.”
At the booth, people will also be able to write notes to soldiers in Afghanistan. Ness will send these to her friend Kyle Anderson, who is serving in northern Afghanistan, to hand out to soldiers.
Ness hopes to get at least 200 photos at Sunday’s event. People can join the Facebook group or send in their own photos to operationcivilianoutreach@gmail.com.
“It is easy, simple and it is doing something,” she said.
