PhotoVoice Water and Sanitary Health Project

In May 2013, PhotoVoice travelled to Zimbabwe to run training in PhotoVoice methodology and participatory photography as a tool for community engagement and monitoring of programme activities for local staff of CAFOD and CARITAS Zimbabwe. They then ran introductory workshops to train the "Community PhotoVoice Officers" in digital photography and image ethics. The photographs taken by the "Community PhotoVoice Officers", are considered an important part of the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of the WASH project. The photographs are also being used to engage and inform the wider community and stimulate improved dialogue and understanding between the project staff and the beneficiary communities.

Click here to view photographs from the project.

In order to engage the wider community in the aims and activities of the WASH programme, workshops were also run with 40 pupils of four schools in the project communities (two primary, two secondary). These schools were given digital cameras and receive ongoing support from CARITAS and PhotoVoice to run an on-going photography project for students looking at WASH issues and changes within the community. The resulting school displays inform students and their families of what WASH issues exist in the community, what CAFOD and CARITAS are doing to improve the situation, and how they as community members can support this process through their actions.

Education, Health, Water and Sanitation

PhotoVoice works with a broad methodology which is tailored to the needs of participants in each project. It is a methodology that builds on the power and potential of photography as a flexible and empowering tool that is at once, accessible, therapeutic, influential, and communicative. PhotoVoice's ethos is framed around a set of core values, central to this is sharing, learning, and working to improve methods, building awareness of responsible practice and ethical working, and maximising impact in the field of participatory photography. Participants work with PhotoVoice facilitators over a series of workshops to learn photographic and digital media techniques, build skills and confidence, initiate group and personal photography projects, and find, explore and define their "photographic voice." The content, length, and frequency of workshops varies in each project.