Can you imagine your life without photography?
Vancouver non-profit Cameras4Change works with at-risk and marginalized youth around the world, many of who have never held a camera. Through photography, their programs are changing lives and giving a voice to incredible stories of survival.
Vancouver-based filmmaker Cate Cameron was working as an international humanitarian photographer when she founded Cameras4Change last year. The non-profit uses art-based storytelling programs to help youth locally and internationally.
Cameron was inspired to start the program during a trip to Kenya where she worked with girls affected by female genital mutilation and early childhood marriage.
“Their stories really captured me because I have daughters of my own. These are nine-year-old girls running across the border and fighting for the right to education and even childhood,” she said.
GALLERY: Cameras4Change in Kenya
Cameron returned to Kenya for two weeks where her team taught groups of refugee and Maasai girls about cameras and photography while shooting a documentary about the experience.
Cameron said for youth who have never held a camera, and in some cases never seen a photograph, the experience was empowering.
WATCH: Seeing a camera for the first time
“We gave them the cameras and they were over-the-moon ecstatic about taking pictures of themselves and each other,” Cameron said. “Here in Canada, we mark our lives with photos, if you don’t have that opportunity you don’t know how it affects you.”
Cameron said photography gave the workshop participants meaning, hope and joy.
“It helped them look at themselves in a different way,” she said. “Photography can be a catalyst for how we think about ourselves. It grounds them and is a way of saying ‘I’m here and I exist.'”
For Cameron, helping young women who have suffered tremendously move forward is the heart of the program.
“We found out an 18-year-old Congolese girl had been held prisoner, kidnapped and sexually abused… she had survived a really challenging life and was physically changed from being sexually abused with lots of emotional problems… she really opened up during the week we were there and would not stop smiling. She loves the camera and was so proud of her photography,” Cameron said.
Cameras4Change has also worked with local Vancouver youth who are at risk.
“When you are marginalized and at risk, as some of these youth have been, we wanted to give them another way to approach life because the more you know yourself, the more you are giving yourself a chance at life,” she said.
Cameron is now raising money through an online campaign to complete her documentary “Weta Pichu,” which means “our picture.”
“The documentary exposes their experience of how photography actually impacted them and gave them hope,” Cameron said.
WATCH: Weta Pichu trailer
Cameras4Change is holding a fundraiser in Vancouver Saturday night to raise money for their programs.
For more information and to donate, visit the Cameras4Change website and Facebook page.
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