Alliance PhotoVoice project aims to bring unheard stories to the fore
29 June 2006
The Alliance has teamed up with PhotoVoice to run a participatory photo project with members of key populations in Frontiers Prevention Project countries.
The project will encourage the use of documentary photography by people who have traditionally been the subject of such work. At the heart of participatory photography is the belief that, by becoming the creators of photography, workshop participants gain control over how they are perceived by the rest of the world, while simultaneously learning a new skill which can enhance their lives.
Representatives from communities of men who have sex with men, sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS from Frontiers Prevention Project sites will participate in national photography workshops in Cambodia, Ecuador and India, where they will be given cameras and taught how to use them effectively. Armed with their new equipment and knowledge they will be asked to photograph their experiences before coming together again at national workshops where they will edit their photographs for both local and international publications and exhibitions.
The Alliance intends to publish a book of the photographs taken by the workshop participants, which will be accompanied by testimonies from each of the photographers. The book will be launched at an exhibition in November in London, which will coincide with Project Celebration, a series of meetings in the UK involving participants from the Frontiers Prevention Project.
“I’m enormously excited about the fact that the Frontiers Prevention Project is providing the Alliance and our partners with an opportunity to try out an entirely new method of engagement,” said Joseph O’Reilly, Senior Policy Adviser and the participatory photo project manager.
“This project has the potential to dramatically increase the visibility of populations who are key to the epidemic from the developing world and in the process I am sure we will learn lots of new and useful things about stigma, discrimination and AIDS.”
For more information contact Joseph O’Reilly.
