Voices Through Photography
- Objective: To enable women and children to record and reflect on changes in their lives in terms of women’s empowerment through the visual medium of photography.
- Materials/Preparation: Disposable cameras. Research teams should also develop key questions to define the scope of the study.
- Participants: Women and men (or youth) in communities within project zones.
Steps
Following an introduction of the study, the research team asks women / girls and boys to go and take pictures of things or people that relate to the impact of projects on their empowerment (or specific evidence categories/key questions) with disposable cameras.
After the film is processed, the research team meets with the photographer, either privately as an interview or in focus groups, to look at the pictures. In meetings, the research team and participants discuss:
- The meaning behind the pictures taken,
- Why they constitute ‘data,’
- Women’s/Children's stories of change,
Across responses and ideas, the research team and participants analyze key issues, themes and lessons from the exercise as well as offer important recommendations.
The photographs and stories from this exercise may also be used for advocacy to reach policy makers, donors, media, researchers and others about important issues facing women’s empowerment.
Related Tools
Resources
- CARE (2006). Global Research Framework for CARE’s Strategic Impact Inquiry on Women’s Empowerment.
- P Stephenson with S Gourley and G Miles (2004). Resourcing Organisations with Opportunities for Transformation and Sharing: Child Participation. Teddington: Tearfund.
- C Wang and M Burris (1996). “Photovoice as a Tool for Participatory Evaluation: The Community's View of Process and Impact.” Journal of Contemporary Health, 4: 47-49.