2012’s People You Missed—In 46 Mind-Bending, Awe-Inducing Photos

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Other Places, Other Worlds, Other People

Other Places, Other People, Your World

One thing that everyone on Earth has in common with everyone else on Earth is that during the course of our day-to-day striving we remain profoundly unaware of almost every other person in existence. It’s not our fault. No one has the bandwidth to keep track of any but the tiniest portion of the 6.9 billion human souls currently alive at any given moment.

Still, TakePart believes in the intrinsic value of recognizing the masses of men, women and children that exist outside of each of us as being importantly linked to us, whether those neighbors live a few city blocks away or on some remote distance of the planet.

It’s an axiom that in this age of fiber optic technology and supersonic travel that all the citizens of the globe are more tightly interlocked than at any time in the history of civilization. Still, the vast, vast majority of us remain strangers to one another.

Perhaps, if we spent some time looking beyond our surface differences, we would see and know how much alike we all are one to another at our cores, and become richer for that knowledge.

In the photo above, a devotee offers prayers to the rising sun during the Chhat festival in Kathmandu, on November 20, 2012. Hindus in Nepal celebrate Chhat, a four-day festival that honors the sun god, by praying at sunrise and sunset and giving offerings to seek blessings for their families.

Click through this gallery of distant relations and acquaint yourself with the varied and universal blessings sought by and bestowed upon the family of humanity.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Open for Questions

A foreign journalist raises her hand to ask a question during a news conference with Jiang Weixin, minister and secretary of the CPC Leadership Group of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, during the 18th National Party Congress (NPC) in Beijing, November 12, 2012. At the last congress in 2007, top officials took one-on-one interviews, overseas reporters were encouraged to ask questions on whatever subject they wished, and government media handlers went out of their way to be helpful, hoping to burnish China’s global image ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games. This year, while economic officials and business leaders have generally been willing to talk, provincial leaders and rising political stars have largely shunned international media, and in some cases tried to avoid talking in public at all.

Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Smoke Gets in Her Eyes

A girl rubs her eyes as smoke rises from a burning effigy of the demon Ghantakarna, symbolizing the destruction of evil, during the Ghantakarna festival at the ancient city of Bhaktapur, July 17, 2012. According to legend, the demon is believed to “steal” children and women from their homes and localities.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Sky High at the Rock

Girls play on a trampoline near a home blasted from a rock wall at the Rockland Ranch community outside Moab, Utah, November 2, 2012. The “Rock” as it is referred to by the approximately 100 people living there in about 15 families, was founded about 35 years ago on a sandstone formation near Canyonlands National Park. Polygamy was a part of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was brought to Utah by faithful Mormons in the late 1840s. The mainstream Mormon church abandoned the practice in 1890, but an estimated 37,000 Mormon fundamentalists continue the practice today and believe plural marriage brings exaltation in heaven.

Photo: Jim Urquhart/Reuters

At the End of His Rope

A police officer pretends to hang himself in front of the parliament during a rally in Athens, September 6, 2012. About 4,000 Greek police, coastguards and firemen protested in Athens on September 6, staging faked suicides on gallows they placed outside the finance ministry and parliament to symbolise the pain of budget cuts.

Photo: John Kolesidis/Reuters

Yoga on a Pole

A boy performs a Mallakhamb pose on a pole at the Shree Samartha Vyayam Mandir in Mumbai, October 21, 2012. Mallakhamb is an ancient Indian sport that originated as a complementary exercise for wrestling, but is now practised as a sport in itself. The name is a combination of the words malla, which means “athlete” or “strong man,” and khamba, which means pole. Athletes perform a variety of yogic and gymnastic poses while suspended from a rope or on a pole. Practitioners say that the sport not only develops a healthy and strong body, but also strengthens willpower and helps compose the mind.

Photo: Vivek Prakash/Reuters

Love and Memory

Dennis Swindell leans over to kiss the inscribed name of his partner, Gary Lee Bright, on the South Tower pool wall during ceremonies marking the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, September 11, 2012.

Photo: Timothy A. Clary/Reuters

Naked Aggression

A naked protester runs past the parliament in Syntagma Square in Athens during a violent protest against the visit of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, October 9, 2012. Greek police fired teargas and stun grenades at protesters in central Athens on October 9 when the demonstrators tried to break through a barrier and reach visiting Merkel. Tens of thousands of street activists defied a ban on protests, gathering in Syntagma square to voice their displeasure with the German leader, who many blame for forcing painful cuts on Greece in exchange for two EU-IMF bailout packages worth over 200 billion euros.

Photo: John Kolesidis/Reuters

The Mount Mercy Contingent

Muslim pilgrims sit on Mount Mercy on the plains of Arafat in the early morning during the annual haj pilgrimage near the holy city of Mecca, October 25, 2012. Nearly 3 million Muslim pilgrims started the first phase of the annual haj on October 25, traveling through packed streets from Mecca’s Grand Mosque to the enormous camp at Mina just outside the Saudi Arabian city.

Photo: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Freedom Punk

A young man dressed as a punk, with pictures of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on his shirt, attends a punk show during the water festival at a music bar in Yangon, April 11, 2012. Myanmar celebrates the New Year Water Festival of Thingyan during the month of Tagu, which usually falls around mid-April.

Photo: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

The Littlest Little Human

Melinda Star Guido, one of the smallest surviving babies born, according to the Global Birth Registry, is pictured as she is discharged from the LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles January 20, 2012. Guido was born on August 30, 2011 at 24 weeks and weighed 9.5 ounces at birth.

Photo: Christina House/Reuters

She Can Hear You Now

Gyla Apio, 11, a girl with hearing challenges, cries after her ears were cleaned during an event held by Starkey Hearing Foundation at St. Monica in Gulu, 226 miles north of Uganda’s capital Kampala, March 13, 2012.

Photo: Xavier Toya/Reuters

A Picture of Survival

A breast cancer survivor poses for a photograph at a center run by the “Reto” Group for Full Recovery of Breast Cancer in Mexico City, October 18, 2012. Breast cancer has been the leading cause of death in Mexican women since 2006, according to the group. The World Day Against Breast Cancer was commemorated on October 19, 2012.

Photo: Edgard Garrido/Reuters

Scout Alone

A boy scout sits after a parade marking the International Workers’ Day celebration in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, May 1, 2012.

Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Working Dog Hours

William Mulhall poses for a photograph in his old curiosity shop in the small seaside village of Ardglass in County Down, Ireland, January 15, 2012. Despite the tiny population, the shop stays open 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, to cater to the fishermen who work round the clock. Mulhall, who is an acclaimed local artist, paints in his shop, which doubles as his studio.

Photo: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters

Fleeing for Dear Life

A woman runs along a road during an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona near Bentiu, South Sudan, April 23, 2012. Sudanese warplanes carried out air strikes on South Sudan on April 23, killing three people near the southern oil town of Bentiu, residents and military officials said, three days after South Sudan pulled out of a disputed oil field.

Photo: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

Dream Home

Meriya Senkar, 10, a Syrian refugee, shows a drawing of her dream home during a class at a school for refugee children at Boynuyogun refugee camp in Hatay province near the Turkish-Syrian border, April 11, 2012.

Photo: Umit Bektas/Reuters

A Harsh Punishment

A trainer puts sand inside the mouth of a Palestinian child during training in a summer camp organized by Hamas movement at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City July 9, 2012. Hamas movement organized dozens of summer camps for Palestinian children during the period of school holidays.

Photo: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

Lighting Up for Their Sins

Penitents light their candles as they take part in the Calvario brotherhood procession during Holy Week in Malaga, southern Spain, April 6, 2012. Hundreds of processions take place around the clock in Spain during Holy Week, drawing thousands of visitors.

Photo: Jon Nazca/Reuters

Youthful Pose

Yoga instructor Tao Porchon-Lynch goes through yoga poses in her yoga class in Hartsdale, New York, May 14, 2012. At 93 years old, Porchon-Lynch was named the world’s oldest yoga teacher by Guinness World Records.

Photo: Keith Bedford/Reuters

Arrows of Justice

Indigenous people point their bows and arrows at a police helicopter flying over the occupied barrier of the Belo Monte Dam’s construction site in Vitoria do Xingu, near Altamira in northern Brazil, June 15, 2012. The area was occupied by around 300 activists, indigenous people, fishermen and coastal community members affected by the project as they protested against the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric power plant, according to the activists.

Photo: Lunae Parracho/Reuters

Dreaming in Wax

Italian artists Antonio Garullo (R) and Mario Ottocento (L) look at their exhibit entitled “The Dream of Italian,” which consists of a wax figurine representing Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as being dead, at the Ferrajoli Palace in downtown Rome, May 29, 2012.

Photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Electing a New Pharaoh

A voter checks her name before casting her vote during the second day of voting in Egypt’s presidential election, at a polling station in Giza, south of Cairo, June 17, 2012. A second day of voting will deliver Egypt’s first freely elected president, though the country faces renewed tension whether he is a former general from the old guard or an Islamist from the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood.

Photo: Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

Myanmar Fire Man

An ethnic Rakhine man holds homemade weapons as he walks in front of houses that were burnt during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe, June 10, 2012. Northwest Myanmar was tense after sectarian violence engulfed its largest city at the weekend. Reuters witnessed rival mobs of Muslims and Buddhists torching houses and police firing into the air to disperse crowds.

Photo: Reuters

Fish in Mouth

A woman prepares to swallow a live fish that has been dipped in homemade medicine during a camp in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, June 8, 2012. Every year in June, the Bathini Goud brothers from Hyderabad draw thousands to their camp to take part in the administering of the fish medicine, which they believe cures them of asthma and respiratory problems.

Photo: Krishnendu Halder

Life Number 10

The Orvillecopter by Dutch artist Bart Jansen (R) flies in central Amsterdam as part of the KunstRAI art festival, June 3, 2012. Jansen said the Orvillecopter is part of a visual art project that pays tribute to his cat, Orville, by making it fly after it was killed by a car. He built the Orvillecopter together with radio control helicopter flyer Arjen Beltman (L).

Photo: Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters

Tribal Survival

A Yawalapiti boy dips his head into the Xingu River in the Xingu National Park, Mato Grosso State, Brazil, May 9, 2012. In August, the Yawalapiti tribe held the Quarup, which is a ritual staged over several days to honor in death a person of great importance to them. This year the Quarup will be honoring two people—a Yawalapiti Indian who they consider a great leader, and Darcy Ribeiro, a well-known author, anthropologist and politician known for focusing on the relationship between native peoples and education in Brazil.

Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

Three for the Price of One

The children of the Amor Divino family, (L-R) Dhones, Izabely and Samille, sit on their couch after their parents dressed them for a weekly physical therapy session, in the Brasilandia favela of Sao Paulo, Brazil, before sunrise March 23, 2012. All three children suffer from a disease called Pelizaeus-Merzbacher, a rare genetic nervous disorder that affects coordination and intellect. Brazil’s social security system INSS granted the family monetary assistance only for one of the three children, leaving the others to depend on the income from their father’s job in a bakery.

Photo: Nacho Doce/Reuters

Prime Time War Crimes

Mejra Dzogaz watches the television broadcast of the court proceedings of former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic in her home in Potocari, near Srebrenica, May 17, 2012. Mejra’s husband, three sons and a grandson were killed during the Srebrenica Massacre in 1995 by a Serbian army unit commanded by Mladic. The Bosnian Serb general made a throat-slitting gesture to a woman who lost her son, husband and brothers in the Srebenica massacre at the start of his trial for some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War Two.

Photo: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Music From Mayhem

A member of the Syrian National Symphony Orchestra carries his instrument as he walks near a poster depicting Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, ahead of a charity concert at al-Hamra theater in Damascus, November 21, 2012. The charity concert was held to help displaced Syrians by collecting winter clothes in exchange for tickets for the concert.

Photo: Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

Wages of War

A Free Syrian Army fighter reacts as he carries the body of a fellow fighter after he was killed by a sniper loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Khan al-Assal area, November 10, 2012. The headband on the fighter reads, “God is great.”

Photo: Zain Karam/Reuters

On the Green Team

Doris, a supporter of Sierra Leone opposition presidential candidate Julius Maada Bio, poses for a picture at Bio’s final campaign rally in Freetown, November 15, 2012. Incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma, a former insurance executive who came to power in 2007 in elections generally considered free and fair, will face off against former junta leader Bio. The poll was a test of democracy in a region notorious for flawed polls, civil wars and coups.

Photo: Joe Penney/Reuters

Showered With Contempt

Riot police try to break down the door of a building during a forced eviction, while protesters from an anti-eviction social movement throw buckets of water at them from the balcony in Oviedo, northern Spain, June 27, 2012. The protesters tried to prevent the eviction of an Ecuadorian family unable to maintain its mortgage payments. The plight of over one million Spanish people facing a crippling mortgage debt is increasingly attracting public support as an anti-eviction movement accelerates to put politicians under pressure to act.

Photo: Eloy Alonso/Reuters

Mud Is Luxury

A boy enjoys lying down on mud while celebrating the Asar Pandhra festival in Pokhara valley, west of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, June 29, 2012. Farmers in Nepal celebrate the festival to mark the commencement of rice crop planting in paddy fields.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

The Beach of Masks

Women, wearing nylon masks, rest on the shore during their visit to a beach in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, July 6, 2012. The mask, which was invented by a woman about seven years ago, is used to block the sun’s rays. The mask is under mass production and is on sale at local swimwear stores.

Photo: Aly Song/Reuters

Shattered Hopes for Peace

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is seen through a damaged car window after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the southern city of Ashdod, November 16, 2012. Israel started drafting 16,000 reserve troops, the military said, in a sign that violence could escalate further with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Photo: Amir Cohen/Reuters

No Home, No Rest

A Sudanese migrant sleeps under a slide as an Israeli girl slides down it at Levinsky Park in South Tel Aviv, June 16, 2012. About 60,000 Africans have crossed into Israel across its porous border with Egypt in recent years. Israel says the vast majority are job seekers, disputing arguments by humanitarian agencies that they should be considered for asylum.

Photo: Baz Ratner/Reuters

On the Train to Indigenous Self-Determination

An indigenous man stands in a subway train as he makes his way to the People’s Summit at Rio+20 for Social and Environmental Justice in Rio de Janeiro, June 20, 2012. The People’s Summit at Rio+20 for Social and Environmental Justice is a parallel event of the Rio+20 United Nations sustainable development summit.

Photo: Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

Drug War Shuffle

Mexican federal policemen escort a group of prisoners toward a plane bound for an undisclosed location at the Morelia International Airport, August 21, 2012. Some 200 inmates serving federal sentences were transferred to federal prisons during an operation by the Secretary of Public Security (SSP), local media reported.

Photo: Leovigildo Gonzalez/Reuters

Thinks He Can Dance

Yuri Kudryavtsev, 18, a student of the Krasnoyarsk choreographic college, does leg-splits while reading a book in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, October 4, 2012. Kudryavtsev, accompanied by his fellow student, Marina Volkova, 16, prepared before taking part in a professional one-week-long ballet contest, dedicated to the 85th anniversary of a well-known Russian choreographer, Yuri Grigorovich. Actors from opera and ballet theatres and graduates of choreographic colleges from different Russian cities also participated. Kudryavtsev and Volkova are winners of the 2011 Grand Prix of the St.-Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre all-Russian ballet schools competition.

Photo: Ilya Naymushin/Reuters

Walking for Rupees

A boy balances on wooden poles as he performs tricks to earn his living on a street in Kathmandu, August 13, 2012.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Double Angels

You Ya-ting (L) and Huang Mei-yu take part in a symbolic same-sex Buddhist wedding ceremony at a temple in Taoyuan county, northern Taiwan, August 11, 2012. The 30-year-old lesbian couple tied the knot after dating for seven years on Saturday in Taiwan’s first same-sex Buddhist wedding. They hope this wedding will help make Taiwan the first place in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage.

Photo: Pichi Chuang/Reuters

Eyes for Home

A Syrian refugee is pictured at the Al Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, July 31, 2012. Jordan opened the camp with 2,000 tents to accommodate an expected new influx of refugees near the border. Diplomats say around 115,000 Syrians have fled their country, mostly to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, to escape the 17-month rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. The Jordanian authorities say around 130,000 Syrians have come to Jordan since the uprising began, but diplomats say not all of them are classified as refugees.

Photo: Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

Shaded Business

An assistant holds an umbrella above German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi as they listen to national anthems during a welcome ceremony before talks in Berlin, October 4, 2012.

Photo: Tobias Schwarz/Reuters

Agony on the Edge

Rescuers and relatives stop a woman from committing suicide by jumping off a building in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, China, August 14, 2012. The woman was rescued as she tried to commit suicide after killing her nephew following a family dispute, local media reported.

Photo: Stringer/Reuters

Cleanliness for Godliness

A Hindu woman returns after taking a holy bath during the first day of Swasthani Brata Katha festival at Saali River near Kathmandu, Nepal, January 9, 2012. The month-long festival, dedicated to God Madhavnarayan and Goddess Swasthani, involves the recitation of folk tales about miraculous feats performed by them in many Hindu households.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

The manifold difficulties pestering the world, whether huge or small, very often contain a human component. The solution to most of these problems begins with an understanding that just and equitable forms of interaction are essential between people of unequal power. That understanding is known as basic human rights. If you want to outfit yourself with the first tool needed to address the mistakes of mankind, you won’t do better than to seize upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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