Only on AP: Heartrending images capture children across the globe who lost parents to COVID

By Alyssa Goodman

Rarely does AP’s Best of the Week award go to an editor. But this week — a particularly strong one for AP with multiple exclusives that could have won on most weeks — the honor is truly deserved by New York-based Top Stories Hub photo editor Alyssa Goodman. Goodman was the driving force behind “Kids Left Behind,” an extraordinarily moving photo package that takes an intimate look at children who have lost parents to the pandemic.

The project,which moved several days after the world topped 4 million dead,was the brainchild of Goodman and New Delhi-based chief photographer Manish Swarup. Goodman worked with photographers around the globe to find many of the subjects, then get permission to photograph and interview them — no easy feat when children are involved.

AP 21189778615835 ss — Jeshmi Narzary, 10, sits on the stairs of her aunt’s house, June 25, 2021. She lost both her parents in two weeks in May in Kokrajhar, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Narzary hasn’t processed the deaths of her parents. But she is scrupulous about wearing face masks and washing her hands. She does so, she said, because she knows “that coronavirus is a disease which kills humans.” – AP Photo / Anupam Nath

AP 21189778559253 ss — Diego Roman holds his daughter, Victoria Soto, for a photo in Lomas de Zamora, Argentina, July 4, 2021. Victoria was born on April, 13, 2021, and her mother, Elizabeth Soto, died from COVID-19 six days later. Roman says he is coping little by little with the loss, but fears for his baby girl, who one day will learn she has no mother. “I want her to learn to say ‘mom’ by showing her a picture of her,” Roman said. “I want her to know that her mother gave her life for her. Her (mother’s) dream was to be a mom, and she was.” – AP Photo / Natacha Pisarenko

AP 21189778552092 ss — Kian Navales poses at home in Quezon City, Philippines, July 6, 2021, holding a pillow with a photo of his late father, Arthur, who died from the coronavirus. Kian, who also had the virus, misses going out for noodles with his dad. – AP Photo / Aaron Favila

AP 21189778558885 ss — Yael Navales poses at home in Quezon City, Philippines, July 6, 2021, with an image of her father, Arthur, who died from the coronavirus. “Our house became quiet and sad. We don’t laugh much since papa left,” she said. – AP Photo / Aaron Favila

AP 21189778555909 ss — Zavion Guzman hugs his sister Jazzmyn while playing in Belleville, N.J., June 30, 2021. Lunisol Guzman adopted the two as babies but she and her partner died last year from COVID-19 at the start of the violent first wave of the pandemic in the U.S. Northeast. The children’s older sisters now care for them. “I lost my mother, but now I’m a mother figure,” said Jennifer Guzman, 29. – AP Photo / Mary Altaffer

AP 21189778550730 ss — Niva Thakrar, 13, who lost her father to the coronavirus, poses at her home in northwestern London, July 5, 2021. As a way to remember him, she takes the same walks and watches the movies they used to watch together before he died in March after a two-month hospital stay. “I still try to do what we used to do before, but it’s not the same,” Thakrar said. – AP Photo / Thanassis Stavrakis

AP 21189778586818 ss — Kehity Collantes, 6, poses for a picture with her dog, Niña, in Santiago, Chile, July 4, 2021. Her mother, a hospital worker, died from the coronavirus. “My papa is now also my mama,” she said. – AP Photo / Esteban Felix

AP 21189778559032 ss — Maggie Catalano, 13, sits for a photo in Riverside County, Calif., July 2, 2021. Maggie’s father, Brian, died of COVID-19 in his home on Dec. 30, 2020. He was 49. Just days before he died he had given Maggie a guitar; she composed and performed a song at his funeral. “I wish he could see me play it now,” she said. “I wish that he could see how much I have improved.” – AP Photo / Jae C. Hong

And what stories they found. An 8-year-old girl in Soweto,South Africa,pining for the father she lost to the disease,a 10-year old in India who lost both parents in a matter of weeks,a young family in the Philippines that has fallen on hard times since husband and father Arthur Navales died in April and a California 13-year-old performing the song she composed for her father’s funeral,on the guitar he gave her for Christmas,days before he died.

Goodman developed a style for the images and coordinated with the photographers to make portraits of the young subjects in a cohesive fashion. Those photographers included Swarup; Natacha Pisarenko,based in Buenos Aires; Jerome Delay,Johannesburg; Thanassis Stavrakis,Athens; Anupam Nath,New Delhi; Esteban Felix,Santiago,Chile; Mary Altaffer,New York; Aaron Favila,Manila; and Jae Hong,Los Angeles,all of whom delivered stirring images. Once the photos were in,Goodman displayed the work — including poignant text by Rome correspondent Nicole Winfield — in a thoughtful, engaging presentation.

The more than 4 million people who have died so far in the coronavirus pandemic left behind parents,friends and spouses — but also young children who are navigating life now as orphans or with just one parent, who is also mourning the loss. https://t.co/uImSWiRuzZ

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 9, 2021

The result was one of the most compelling packages AP has done in recent years. Almost everyone who has spent time with it has been moved to tears,and the images have had impact beyond the websites and newspapers that have featured them. A Philippines Taekwondo instructor saw the Navales children featured in the package and phoned the photographer to see if he could help them. The coach had not known that their father had passed away until he saw the AP gallery. Starting right away,the instructor promised to take the children on as Taekwondo students in his class free of charge until they reach blackbelt. It had been Arthur Navales’ dream.

For generating an inspired and challenging project,handling it with sensitivity and tenaciously seeing it through in collaboration with global colleagues, Alyssa Goodman wins AP’s Best of the Week award.

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By The Associated Press

JULY 16, 2021

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