DETROIT — Photos taken by girls at a Kenyan residential school where four Adrian Dominican sisters have been working will be on exhibit beginning next Saturday, March 16, at a downtown Detroit gallery.

The young photographers are students at St. Clare Girls’ Centre in Meru, Kenya, a refuge for girls orphaned and abandoned because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that has ravaged the East African country.

They have been taking a photojournalism class taught by Sr. Kathryn Cliatt, OP, who — along with fellow Adrian Dominican Srs. Renee Richie, Christa Marsik and Maurine Barzantni — answered a call for volunteers to serve at St. Clare.

Besides doing some teaching and counseling, the sisters assist the staff and “offer a grandmotherly presence for the girls,”0s said Sr. Sue Schreiber, OP, who has served as curator of the exhibit.

“They’re working in an area where young girls are used and abused, and taken into slavery through young marriages,” Sr. Schreiber continued, explaining that girls as young as 6-12 years of age are forced to marry older men and work as their slaves.

She said the St. Clare Girls’ Centre operates on the principle of “Simple Living, High Thinking,” supported by prayer, study, work and play — a place where young girls fleeing from the grim prospect of arranged marriages or female genital mutilation can both receive a quality education and “rediscover the joy and pleasure of childhood.”

For most of the girls in Sr. Cliatt’s photojournalism class, it was the first time they have ever used a camera.

St. Clare Girls’ Centre was established by Fr. Francis Limo Riwa, who had previously founded a similar facility nearby for orphaned boys. The two campuses now serve 300 children between them.

“I think what Fr. Riwa has started is wonderful. In 1999 he began to rescue orphaned and abandoned street children, giving them a home and an opportunity for an education,” Sr. Schreiber said.

It was Bud Ozar, former director of the archdiocesan Office of Family Life, who urged the Adrian Dominicans to help Fr. Riwa’s work in Kenya.

Bud and Sue Ozars will give a presentation at the exhibit’s opening reception.

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To support the sisters’ work at St. Clare Girls’ Centre in Meru, Kenya, send donations to Adrian Dominican Sisters, Kenya Mission, 1257 E. Siena Heights Drive, Adrian 49221.