Looking Through Their Eyes

Kevin Foos and Sarah Brownell, Coordinators

Project Goal:

Looking through Their Eyes is a digital photography project with the goal of empowering youth in Haiti to discuss and engage in local issues that affect their community. 

Participants:

For this pilot project, we worked with the Wesleyan Church youth group in Borgne, Haiti.  The group selected 22 children and young adults ranging from 9 to 30 years of age to participate. We began the project by meeting with the participants in small groups, teaching them how to use six simple digital cameras and then using a laptop computer to review their photos for nearly instant feedback.  The participants were very enthusiastic—it was the first time many had ever seen or had the opportunity to use such technologies.

Photography:

Each participant was then given a camera to use for the day and asked to answer the following questions in the form of pictures:  

In all, they took over 1200 photographs.  The photos were both provocative and artistic, giving us a rare opportunity to “look through their eyes” and begin to understand and talk together about the realities of living in poverty.

Discussions and Action:

With all the participants together, we reviewed and discussed each photo.  The photographer explained why he or she took the picture, and we talked about the emotions the photo provoked.  Following the presentations, we held a group discussion focusing on their shared concerns and joys.  Topics included food and hunger, dirty drinking water, toilets and sanitation, going to the bathroom in public, lack of medical care and educational opportunities, children with no shoes, no clean places to play, liquor sold on the streets, and the treatment of the disabled.  Many of the photos reflected the joy they find in their families and friendships and their deep respect and appreciation for nature and the gardens which provide much of their food.  We talked about what they, as children and young people, could do to address some of the problems in their community and to try to make a difference in their futures.  In the next two youth group meetings following these discussions, the younger children wrote a song to educate others on not going to the bathroom in public, and the older ones wrote a proposal to install a UV water disinfection system to serve their community.

Celebration:

Finally, we organized a community art showing and celebration, inviting church and community leaders, parents and family members.  The show gave over a hundred people the opportunity to see the young people’s work and really hear their feelings and their ideas for the first time.

Conclusions:

This project was very special to us.  We feel that it stimulated the participants and empowered them to a new level of awareness, giving them more hope to affect change in their community.  We plan to expand on the project with more cameras which we will use to create a digital photography educational tool for the local teacher’s lending library.  The library is a resource for over 100 schools in the commune (county).  We hope this new tool will further the opportunity for discussion and the empowerment of youth as well as provide teachers with a tool to help students look critically at their community and the issues they face living in poverty.

We have also been using the photographs (with permission of the participants) to educate people in the United States about the realities that our brothers and sisters in rural Haiti face in their day to day struggle of living in poverty.   Several of the photographs have been displayed in college libraries and have been utilized in work shops, presentations, fundraisers and other local events. 

Looking Through Their Eyes Greeting Cards:

The Looking Through Their Eyes Greeting Cards are intended to be both an educational tool and a fundraiser.  The moving photographs give a child’s eye view of the positive and negative realities of living in rural Haiti.  Each photo is accompanied by the photographer’s name and description of the photo on the back of the card.  Six of the twelve cards share the wit and wisdom of traditional Haitian proverbs on the inside fold while the remaining six cards are blank.  Sets of 12 blank cards are also available.   Proceeds benefit the youth group and Haiti Outreach: Pwoje Espwa (H.O.P.E.), a community development organization working in Borgne.