Beside his love for the theater, David Jiranek had a passion for photography, for adventure and for working with disadvantaged children. Improbably, he combined all three with his recent Project - Through the Eyes of Children. Three years ago, he traveled to African nation of Rwanda to document in photographs the after-effects of the horrible genocide of 1994. While there, Mr. Jiranek befriended the children of the Imbabazi Orphanage and taught the children, who had never seen a camera, how to take pictures. The Imbabazi Orphanage is founded and still run by 90-year-old American matriarch Rosamond Carr, to care for the young survivors of the Hutu-Tutsi genocide. (In "Gorillas in the Mist," the film about gorilla researcher Dian Fossey, the Rosamond Carr character is played by the actress Julie Harris.) The photography experiment with the orphanage yielded a trove of astonishingly beautiful images created by the children which became the basis for a photography exhibition in Rwanda's capital city and at various galleries in the U.S., most recently this past June at the Freida and Roy Furnam Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater in the Lincoln Center. (The photographs can be seen on the Rwanda Project Web site.)

Mr. Jiranek took a special interest in one of the orphans, Frederick Ndabaramiye, a teenager and aspiring artist who managed to draw and take photographs without the use of hands, having lost those to a group of machete-wielding Hutus. (Frederick is himself a Hutu; he was punished for disobeying orders to help murder a busload of Tutsis.) Mr. Jiranek played an important role in surmounting political and logistical obstacles to bring Frederick to the United States last year to be outfitted with prosthetic hands. ABC News and Charles Gibson filmed a segment about Frederick and his story at that time. Mr. Jiranek had hoped to see the piece air on "20/20" to help raise awareness for the plight of these extraordinary children in Rwanda.

Mr. Jiranek believed so strongly in helping the Rwandan orphans achieve a better future that he subsidized the entire Rwanda Project himself. He also raised money for the children by soliciting donations, using the children's photographs as a fund-raising vehicle. It is the wish of his family and his colleagues involved with the Rwanda Project that the Project should endure, for the sake of the children and as a fitting legacy for David Jiranek.

David Jiranek is predeceased by his father, prominent furniture designer Leo A. Jiranek of Old Greenwich, and by his half-brother Henry Heald. He is survived by his wife Cricket Hooper Jiranek and their two daughters, Harriet Carrington "Cat" Jiranek, age 7, and Sailor Jennings Jiranek, age 4, of Old Greenwich, his mother Elaine "Jen" Jiranek, of Old Greenwich, and a large, extended family that includes four half-brothers, Theodore "Teke" Hoffman, R. Todd Hoffman, Robert H. Jiranek, and James Heald Jiranek.

There will be a private memorial service to be held outdoors at Lucas Point Beach in Old Greenwich this Sunday, Aug. 24 at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations should be made to the Rwanda Project. To make a contribution, visit how to help on the Web site.