Photo: #The first issue of NEED Magazine featured photos from a boat-building project in Thailand led by the American Refugee Committee. Thousands of families lost their fishing boats and livelihoods in the 2004 tsunami.
Photo: #The signature of NEED Magazine is the photos. More than 100 full-color, artistic photos are in the current issue of the publication.
Photo: #NEED Magazine's second issue cover. A boy caked with mud stands near makeshift shelters in a Ugandan refugee camp. The boy is holding a motorcycle tire.
Photo: #The second issue of NEED Magazine profiles the members of an all-female land mine-clearing team in Cambodia. They work and live together, working for Mines Advisory Group. NEED Magazine co-founder Kelly Kinnunen says the photos tell the women's story as well as the article they accompany.
Photo: #The second issue of NEED Magazine profiles the members of an all-female land mine-clearing team in Cambodia working for the Mines Advisory Group.
Photo: #Mary Jo Copeland works with clients at Sharing and Caring Hands in Minneapolis. Her work is profiled in the second issue of NEED Magazine. Magazine co-founders Kelly and Stephanie Kinnunen say each issue will highlight at least one U.S.-based humanitarian project.
Photo: #The first issue of NEED Magazine featured photos from a boat-building project in Thailand led by the American Refugee Committee. Thousands of families lost their fishing boats and livelihoods in the 2004 tsunami. Like NEED Magazine, the American Refugee Committee is based in Minneapolis.
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The first issue of NEED Magazine featured photos from a boat-building project in Thailand led by the American Refugee Committee. Thousands of families lost their fishing boats and livelihoods in the 2004 tsunami. (Photo courtesy of NEED Magazine, Thomas Hommeyer and Linda Cullen)
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People in NEED

by Steven John, Minnesota Public Radio
May 11, 2007

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"If Vogue and the United Nations had a love child" this would be it, say NEED Magazine's co-founders Kelly and Stephanie Kinnunen. The husband-wife team are Minnesota natives who were teaching in Europe when a trip to a shelter for former child sex workers inspired them to action.

The Kinnunen's sold everything they owned, moved home, and started NEED Magazine in the suburban Twin Cities hotel room they called home.

The periodical aims to tell the stories of humanitarian organizations and the people those organizations serve around the world. This issue's cover states the mission plainly:

"We're not out to save the world, but to tell the stories of those who are."

The second issue of NEED Magazine is on newsstands now. The cover shows a boy caked with mud standing near makeshift shelters in a refugee camp in Uganda. He holds a motorcycle tire above his head like a halo against a pure blue sky.

His expression is strangely confident, given his desperate surroundings. It's the first of over a hundred full-color, remarkably artistic photos that are the signature of this upstart, Minneapolis-based magazine.

Kelly and Stephanie Kinnunen spoke with MPR's Steven John earlier this week about their efforts.

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