See it Our Way - Albania, Armenia, Lebanon, Romania, Pakistan (2010-11)
Location: Africa and the Middle East, Lebanon, Pakistan, Europe, Albania, Armenia, Romania
Keywords: Advocacy, Children, Education, Human Trafficking, Poverty, Rights, Street Children, Young People
Project Background
Partner Organisation: World Vision
Project Manager: Matt Daw
Facilitators: Ania Dabrowska (Albania), Jenny Matthews (Romania, Lebanon, Pakistan), Lucy Williams (Armenia)
Human trafficking is one of the most prevalent human rights issues in the world today. Despite affecting millions of people each year, there are many myths and misconceptions about what human trafficking actually is. The sensational stories of women kidnapped and kept prisoner for sexual exploitation grab the headlines, but this is just one facet to an immensely complex issue tied in to many social issues in communities where people fall victim to traffickers. In essence, human trafficking is when someone makes money from moving another person into a new location and/or context. It is a trade in humans - modern day slavery - and can take many forms.
Youth from the See it Our Way project live in communities that are source, transit and destination communities for human trafficking across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Photographs taken by these youth in several photography workshops reveal ground-level issues from the unique, inside perspective of young people particularly vulnerable to trafficking. The training has enabled these at-risk young people to consider the issues more carefully themselves, while playing an active role in informing and guiding peers in their communities who are also at risk of falling prey to traffickers. Their work is informing future prevention and campaign activities by local World Vision teams and partners.
In partnership with World Vision, PhotoVoice has run photo-advocacy workshops this autumn in Romania, Armenia, Albania, Lebanon and Pakistan. The resulting body of work provides a revealing picture of the underlying causes and impact of the lucrative exploitation of children and adults.
A presentation embedded at the bottom of this page provides a little more background on the activities and the issues revealed by this project.
Project photo gallery
To switch between the galleries for each country, click on the menu icon at the bottom left.Meet the Photographers
Go here to read more about the photographersPress
See a further selection of photographs from this project on citizen journalist site Demotix.
Lebanon Daily Star article about the workshops held with a group of young people from the Home of Hope centre in Beirut.
Coverage on Lebanese TV about the exhibition of photographs by the young people in the Sin el Fil Cultural Centre in Beirut.
Project Outputs
Project Manager Matt Daw presented a selection of photos and captions from the young people in Armenia, Albania, Lebanon and Romania at the BFI on Saturday 27th November, as part of the We the People social film festival.
In December 2010, to coincide with Human Rights Day on 10th December, exhibitions and campaigns were held in each participating country with targeted messages identified by the young people to address the issues most important to their communities.
For example, in Armenia an exhibition of photos and messages from the young people is touring schools around Gyumri in order to raise awareness amongst those about to finish school of the dangers of apparently attractive overseas work placements. In reality, many of these involve people being separated from their support structures by being taken abroad, and forced to work in inhumane conditions without pay, on the understanding that they are paying off the costs of the scheme. A selection of photos and messages by the young people have also been used in a desk calendar printed and disseminated to local authorities, social organisations and school principals to encourage them to consider this issue in their work.
In Albania an exhibition was held in December at the National Museum in the centre of Tirana, with the full support of the Ministry of Interior, The National Anti-trafficking Coordinator, and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports. The participants attended an opening night event at which press and politicians viewed their photos and messages exposing the preventable risks and social issues affecting young people in their community.
In Lebanon an exhibition was held at the Sin el Fil Cultural Centre in Beirut, opening on the 7th December and running until 21st December 2010. See above for links to press coverage of this exhibition in Lebanon.
In Romania, an exhibition was hosted by the County School Inspectorate in Iasi and kept open to the public for the whole of December 2010. From January 2011, the exhibition started to travel into interested schools and high schools in Iasi and neighbouring Vaslui Counties.
A selection of photographs by the young people in Armenia, Albania and Lebanon were shown at the EU Summit on human trafficking in Brussels in November 2010, where significant steps were taken in changing policy to tackle human trafficking more effectively (read a summary of the main steps taken (pdf)).
Work from all five participating countries is feeding into the Human Wrong campaign in the US, aimed at bringing the exploitative trade in human beings to an end.
The first exhibition of the work in America as part of this campaign takes place in Columbia University, Chicago - opening Monday 4th April 2011. The work will be on display in downtown Chicago so plenty of people will see it and gain a more in depth understanding of the issue of human trafficking as experienced by young people in affected communities.
Watch this space for details of additional local and international outputs using the work from this exciting project!
Further project info
To view this slideshow at full screen click on ‘Menu’ at the bottom left and select ‘Full Screen’.
As well as the campaign outputs, lasting impact has been felt form the project process in each participating country.
Pakistan
The methodology of the training was translated into Urdu by the World Vision Pakistan National Office. This will be used when the photography project is replicated in a new children’s centre to be opened in Kasur, Pakistan, in the same mould as the Manzil Centre in Rawalpindi.
Romania
Due to the success of the project with participants, peers, parents and community members, the project will be replicated with teenagers vulnerable to trafficking in Vaslui county, Romania. The project will be replicated by WV Romania staff with one of the participants of the original PhotoVoice project attending as a co-trainer.
Armenia
Due to the targeted awareness-raising work undertaken as part of the original See it Our Way project, WV Armenia has been consulting with Gyumri Police Underage and Passport Departments and field NGOs to prioritize subsequent awareness rising campaign on “Trafficking”, mainly focusing on child and labour abuse which will include meetings with high grade students and parents in conjunction with Police Department.
Two groups of students and a group of parents from each of 10 WV Area Development Programme (ADP) schools will take part in discussions organized by each ADP in partnership with Police, who, in their turn, will continue meetings outside ADP educational institutions.
Materials created by WV will be disseminated amongst participants: partly in schools during trainings/discussions, the rest handed over to the Underage and Passport Departments of Police aimed at further distribution within the youth and schools outside of ADP area.
Albania
Travelling exhibition:
After raising awareness in their community, the youth would like to take their photo exhibition to other cities of Albania. They believe that by displaying their pictures along with the messages in schools or public spaces, they will have the opportunity to reach more peers. The youth strongly believe that their picture will serve to start conversations on trafficking issues, and will raise awareness in areas where this kind of information might not be available.
Postcards campaign:
As a continuation of the national campaign, a postcard campaign will be undertaken. The youth have already selected their favorite picture to be turned into a postcard. The postcards will be disseminated through mail to all partners, stakeholders, governmental institutions etc. Each month, a new postcard will be send, resulting in a campaign running for at least 8 months . The postcards will also be distributed during the moving photo exhibition in other cities of Albania.
Lebanon
WV is currently running an advocacy project focused on discrimination against children. As a direct result of the success of See it Our Way, photo-advocacy projects with the Children’s Council will be integrated into this project with each child choosing an area of discrimination that is relevant to their lives (eg gender,refugee status, disability etc.). The photos will be used in various advocacy materials and some exhibited within a national youth forum on cultural diversity and acceptance of others. A PDF of See it Our Way has also been created and will be distributed to various WV Lebanon stakeholders.