Drawing inspiration from Briski’s work, I used a digital camera to teach basic photography lessons to a small group of Peruvian kids. Later I distributed several disposable cameras amongst the group. Each student was given an opportunity to borrow one of the cameras in order to shoot whatever their little artistic heart desired.

I can’t describe how impressed I was when I picked up the prints at the photo store. The prints captured some truly fascinating moments seen through the eyes of the students: breastfeeding babies, sisters studying hard in the afternoon sunlight, a group of young boys hunched proudly over their motorcycles. I returned to my town several days later to return the remarkable work to their rightful owners.

Imagine my surprise when I was approached by a stern looking group of mothers. With a hint of rancor, they described how one of my students had, for a hefty price, pawned several portraits. Though I can appreciate his entrepreneurial spirit, I was slightly ashamed to admit that I’d never thought of the repercussions of handing out the cameras. I had forgotten to estimate the impact my activity might have on those who weren’t lucky enough to participate.

Young photographers lookin' for trouble

As I sat and contemplated where I’d gone wrong, I recalled an interesting speech I’d attended several months ago. At the time I’d been interning at a large multinational aid and development organization. While there I was allowed to attend weekly presentations by international field staffers. One of the most memorable talks was led by the director of our programs in Colombia.

During a discussion about her youth athletic programs, the director recounted a very particular problem she’d recently had. The problem was this: A major athletic apparel company had donated a cargo crate full of materials to the youth soccer program. The supplies immediately became a source of anxiety. The staff worried about the impact a container of shiny new shoes and shirts, all with flashy brand symbols, might have on a group of impoverished kids living in one of Colombia’s roughest neighborhoods. Out of fear for the kids safety, the program managers returned the entire shipment of shoes. They held onto the shirts but first rubbed the entire batch in dirt and later washed them several times. Later they spread rumors that all the products were Chinese knockoffs.

The director went on to say that she appreciated all the charitable donations and wanted to thank their sponsor. However, in the end it appeared as though the gifts caused more time, money and headaches than they were worth.

Though I don’t think that any of the cameras I’ve given out have put my students in direct danger, this experience has taught me to think more heavily about the impacts of handouts in the developing world. It’s a very complicated subject but worth contemplating if one hopes to do things right.

Curtis Fox recently finished a gig as a volunteer for Mejor Communities, helping to train a dynamic group of Peruvian Youth Health Advocates.

Corporación Condor is an organization based in Bogotá, Colombia that travels to marginalized areas all around the country to provide free medical care. In this essay, the group of volunteer doctors and members of the Colombian Air Force traveled to Providencia Island for a marathon of surgeries and check-ups, helping a total of 1,280 people over a single weekend.

ngo profile no. 01 ::: corporación condor from leah on Vimeo.

Leah is currently living in Bogotá, Colombia working with various nonprofit organizations and taking photographs of everyday stuff. This multimedia is the first of a year-long series telling stories for 25 NGO’s all across South America. To see more photos from South America and learn more about the 25twenty-five project, visit her bilingual blog or join the Facebook page.

This June marks one year of living in Costa Rica as a Children, Youth, and Family Development volunteer. My town is a small agriculture town of about 600 inhabitants in the central-valley mountains where there have been ups, there have been downs, and there have been in-betweens. Life is simple, life is unpredictable, and life is….challenging. This, I have discovered first hand over the past year in a country that struggles to get its footing over a vast crevasse of a rocky cliff between a land of poverty and a land beaming full of tourism.

When I got my Peace Corps placement of Costa Rica, most people couldn’t believe it. “There’s Peace Corps in Costa Rica?” “Oh, tough break,” or “It’ll be like you’re on vacation for two years!” But there is a face of Costa Rica – a face that most people don’t know.

This face of Costa Rica, it’s hidden well. It’s hidden deep in my village where Nicaraguan mothers struggle to afford milk for their children. It’s hidden in broken benches that surround the soccer field and in the tin walls that make up the houses here. It’s hidden in the discrimination between Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans. It’s hidden in the lack of resources in the school. It’s hidden in the lack of productive activities for youth. It’s hidden. Everywhere.

That’s, I guess, where my job comes in- two years working in the youth development sector of this community. And due to the slow process of international development work, I am finally beginning to feel like I am making a difference here, one year later. As a firm believer in the power of images, photography and creative expression to create change, I have used that as a way to empower children and give them an outlet for their hidden voices as the basis of many of my projects. And will continue to do so over the next year.

My time here is long. But my time here is also short. It’s simple; but, it’s challenging. It’s planned; but it’s also incredibly unpredictable. There are barriers of all sorts, and there are rocks in the way. But it’s real, and it’s extraordinary, and I am immersed in it – this lovely country balancing between “developed” and “developing.” This country has stories to tell.

Rebecca Stumpf is currently a Peace Corps volunteer in Copey de Dota, Costa Rica. To read more about her experiences and see more of her photography, check out her website and photography blog. For some delicious recipes, check out her food blog.

Manuel, my roommate in Colombia, happens to be an accomplished freelance journalist and offered to let me tag along to an important interview he had downtown today. Turns out the Colombian House and Senate elections that happen every four years will be held in just two short weeks and Manuel was on a hunt to get perspective from one of the underdog candidates. So I wiped the sleep out of my eyes, threw a camera in my bag, and ran out the door behind Manuel. I had only been awake in the country for one hour but I was ready to hit the streets, searching for stories. Why, hello Colombia! Very nice to meet you.

I came to Bogotá because I am a photographer who decided the best way to see South America would be to invent my own project. I’d known for two years that Suramerica would be my next continent of choice, and so I nibbled away at research and reasons to come down. For months I scoured through volunteer organizations and instead of getting excited, I grew frustrated. There were so many organizations and companies and on top of that, many wanted *me* to pay them to come and give my time. I didn’t know whom to trust nor did I really have the type of funds they were asking for. I realized I would need another approach to reaching the southern hemisphere…

Now, I was certain of a few things: 1. I am a good photographer 2. I want to do good things for people who actually need it and 3. I want to be in South America for a full year. I figured all I would need are organizations I care about and an audience to listen to my stories. And so the 25twenty-five project was born.

The purpose of 25twenty-five is to travel through South America, photographing and telling stories for 25 NGO’s while I’m 25 years old. I am blogging my way over the Andes and across the Amazon with the possibility of teaching and informing a larger, interested audience as I myself learn about these people and places.

When I told most people I was leaving for South America, the initial reaction usually consisted of “Why the @#$% would you wanna do that?!”

My response was…please let me show you.

To see more of Leah Giesler’s work, check out her personal blog.

Emanuel, a student from Santa Rosa, takes a picture.

I’ll never forget watching my first group of photo students in Solentiname walk away from me to shoot some of their first pictures. I was standing inside of the poorly lit classroom with a massive smile on my face – I could hardly contain my happiness – and reminded them one last time that I would be waiting in the classroom if they needed help with anything. But I doubt any of them actually heard me. With donated digital point-and-shoot cameras in hand, the students walked out of the small classroom building (that used to be somebody’s home) and immediately stopped to take pictures of each other, of the brightly colored hand prints painted on the wall, and of the pathway that led away from their current positions. It seemed as if they couldn’t wait to start taking pictures. It also seemed as if they were looking at the banal area outside of the classroom for the first time.

That was over two weeks ago. Now, I’ve started to give classes to four other groups, including a group of ten students from a very small island with a population of roughly 55 people called Santa Rosa (one of the archipelago’s 36 islands). Most of my students, whose ages range from nine to 18 years old with the exception of one adult student, have proven themselves to be natural born photographers even though the majority of them had never taken a picture before.

Just days before my first class I was having doubts about the role and importance of photography in such a rural area of Nicaragua. I kept thinking about the countless other ways that I could help the community of Solentiname and continuously questioned how photography might help the youth here.

After witnessing the beautiful pictures and even more beautiful smiles on the childrens’ faces as they took or looked at their pictures, my apprehensions withered away. My sense of purpose became clear as I realized the importance of developing a child’s confidence and creativity through extracurricular activities such as photography – especially in a place where extracurricular activities are virtually nonexistent. Another benefit of these photo classes is that each student receives prints of his or her best photographs after completing a certain number of photo assignments. While the students’ photos document their culture, the prints they receive will help preserve memories of their families, friends, and archipelago well into the future.

Well, as the title of this post indicates, I still have a year’s worth of photo classes and pleasant surprises ahead of me. Stay tuned for more!

I’m currently working on a blog where I can showcase the student’s work and share their stories. I’ll include details when the blog is up and running. For the meantime, check out Kids with Cameras, an awesome organization and a great example of how photography has helped a group of children from Calcutta’s red-light district.

Well, in my first few hours in Solentiname I realized that rushing into my projects was not the right way to start my year as a volunteer. The best thing I could do was to switch gears and take my time. After all, I was entering a small village with a population of roughly 300 people where life moves at a much slower pace than São Paulo – the metropolis I call home.

Before I got started on my work I had to start learning about the islands, their inhabitants, and how things work here. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not lying in a hammock all day twiddling my fingers. I’ve been busy helping teach reading classes to children and young adolescents, I’ve helped lug all sorts of heavy objects in preparation for Solentiname’s first music festival, and, most importantly, I’m constantly making an effort to establish new friendships and integrate myself into the community by participating in as many activities as possible, such as playing hide-and-go-seek with the kids, soccer with the young guys, and checkers with the old guys.

I can say that my change of plans is working out better than I had hoped.

Now, two weeks after my arrival, I’ve met most of the people that live in my village and feel more at home every day. I’ve started to photograph the people here as they go about their daily lives and, consequently, have received a lot of interest from several curious children and adolescents who are eager to attend my photo classes. If everything goes as planned I should be teaching my first class next week. In the meantime, I’ll start transitioning out of my “take your time” state of mind and into my “let’s get cracking” mode.

To check out some of my first pictures from Solentiname, check out my personal photo blog. For further reading on working as a volunteer within a new community, have a look at “Community Relations & Expectations.”

Before I even began considering volunteering, I was looking into teach English abroad programs in Asia. At that point, I knew that I wanted to immerse myself in a foreign culture. Why? Because I wanted to test myself. I also wanted to expand my photography portfolio and try my hand as a freelance photographer abroad.

Granada, Nicaragua

I realized pretty quickly that teaching English in Asia was just a pretext that fit in with my own selfish motives. So, I discarded my disappointing plan and began to rework my intentions. It was at this point that I started considering working for an NGO. And thus the research began. The more I read about humanitarian organizations, the more I began to ask myself, “What can I offer with a passion?” It didn’t take long for me to find the answer: photography.

While I found several organizations all over the world that offered photography classes to underprivileged youth, I indulged the idea of starting my own photo program. But where? Well, here’s how my interest shifted away from Asia and moved towards Central America. In my final year of university, I wrote a research paper about some literature that revolved around the archipelago of Solentiname. In writing the paper, I became fascinated by Solentiname’s primitivist painters, liberation theology, and Eden-like landscapes. My attraction to Solentiname intensified tenfold once I learned that there were several organizations present on the islands.

The rest happened very quickly. I called the founder of Allianza para Solidaridad de Solentiname, spoke to him about his organization, asked him if there were any volunteer opportunities, and, once he answered affirmatively, I pitched him the idea of starting a photo program. We met in October and again in November to discuss the logistics, budget, and preparation for my dream photography program. He told me that I would also be very involved in another project to promote reading to the islands’ youth. After much consideration, I agreed to volunteer for one year. A friend of mine donated some money for us to buy cameras. I bought a one-way plane ticket to Nicaragua and now I’m in Granada where I will be taking a very long ferry ride followed by a much shorter boat ride to Solentiname.

Emily Anne Epstein is a photographer and writer who, after spending a year working in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is currently based in NYC. Her interest in the lives of those around her has led her to seek out work with Habitat for Humanity, Americorps, and other non-governmental organizations to support humanitarian efforts.

A couple of weeks ago, we posted one of Emily’s audio slideshows that highlights the work of Habitat for Humanity in Argentina. Today, Emily gives us an intimate look at Villa 31, one of the most well-known slums in Buenos Aires.

Villa 31 is a 1,525 hectare slum located in the business center of Argentina’s capital city. At least 40,000 people call it home, mostly illegal immigrants, where life and death obey different rules than the ones that maintain the city proper. The lands are the most expensive in Buenos Aires because of their location: right in the middle of downtown, close to the stock market and the highest valued neighborhood, not to mention the city’s central bus and train station.

Regardless of its surroundings, Villa 31 exists in a parallel world, almost self-sufficient and with its own values. It is a city within an Argentine bubble; it grows exponentially, composed of Paraguayans, Bolivians, Peruvians and other families struggling to make a living in Argentina. The government of Buenos Aires views the slum as a blight, often imposing laws and raids meant to break up the community. However, upon entering the Villa, you will find children roaming freely. There are several businesses and community centers within the villa, ranging from restaurants to dentists.

While the native countries of the inhabitants are different, many of them share traditional patriarchal or machismo values. Most often, men work as construction workers and women are homemakers and maids. Rather than explore misconceptions about crime and legality, I felt an investigation into the life of children would best explain the complexities of Villa 31 and the infrastructure that maintains it. Children, unpolluted by politics, are the best indicators of injustice.

“Last year I had the opportunity to make an audio slideshow for Habitat for Humanity, a NGO that works to provide housing solutions. I went on site to a “brigade” in Recreo, Argentina, where international volunteers constructed homes alongside families for two weeks. I photographed the buildings, the people, and the teamwork in order to make this video.”