| Sports |
Photo Voice- A
tool for social action
By MARTIN TONNY
In November 2007, Marie Stopes Papua New Guinea (MSPNG) will be
opening an exhibition of photographs at the National Parliament
State Function Room.
The photographs are the work of PNG young people between the
ages of 15 - 24 years. The exhibition will reveal the humorous,
real, and positive and yet at moments shocking and distressing
visual images that exist in the PNG communities today.
The exhibition is the celebration of the results of an ongoing
social programme called PhotoVoice.
PhotoVoice PNG is a part of Marie Stopes’ approach to education
and advocacy. The goal of this programme is to increase
knowledge on the subject of sexual and reproductive health,
HIV/AIDS and other existing social health problems.
PhotoVoice PNG offers a new and exciting way to inform and
educate young people about these important societal issues.
MSPNG Communication and Social Marketing Manager Elizabeth Sowei
explains, “PhotoVoice is an avenue through which young people
highlight issues that affect them and their communities. The
exhibition is aimed at highlighting to the leaders of this
country both at the national and community level the issues of
concern as seen through the eyes of our youth.
“It is MSPNG’s hope that the leaders, through the exhibition,
will be able to see and understand the issues affecting their
communities and hopefully address some of them through their
community programs,” Mrs. Sowei added.
PhotoVoice PNG was conducted at seven churches including the
Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, United,
Lutheran and Salvation Army churches. The last programme
concluded in August with Boroko Salvation Army youths. Just like
the other church participants they were gathered together for a
briefing on sexual reproductive health before being trained on
the use of disposable cameras and sent out to their communities.
The insights MSPNG and the participants gained by working
together were revealing, astonishing and alarming. The pictures
taken by the youth focused on their lives, their world and their
issues. These pictures provided conversation topics for each
group to define, discuss and debate.
PhotoVoice provided a genuine glimpse into life of all sectors
of the PNG community. The pictures capture the beliefs, fears,
struggles and celebrations. Most importantly, the pictures
promoted dialogue amongst the youth participants and church
leaders. These discussions have resulted in the young people
developing a series of positive project ideas to address the key
identified issues. These issues include drugs and alcohol,
teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, boredom, condom and health
service accessibility, STIs and HIV/AIDS.
Used very effectively overseas, Marie Stopes PNG believes
PhotoVoice is an appropriate approach for helping PNG young
people to understand sexual health and other social issues
facing both young and old people in PNG communities.
Tony Webb, Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for
Population, University of Sydney in his paper “PhotoVoice” A
starting point for social action? discusses that literature on
origin of photo-voice credits a group of action-researchers in
Ann Arbour, Michigan in the USA with the idea of giving
disposable cameras to homeless ‘street’ people and inviting them
to take pictures that represent their world - to photograph the
world as seen through the eyes of the homeless.
Conversations with these people about the choice of pictures
taken, their significance and the personal stories behind these
pictures were then recorded, transcribed and edited - a
collaborative process between the ‘action-researchers’ and the
homeless - and turned into a Photo-Voice exhibition. The wider
communities were then invited to see and hopefully better
understand this world of the homeless - one that was until then
either invisible or marginalised within the community. Since
then the idea has been applied in many different situations with
other groups of marginalised people using the process to give
the wider community a chance to see through the eyes and hear
through the voice of those otherwise invisible and unheard.
MSPNG is nearing the end of preparation for their exhibition and
working towards gaining approval to exhibit at the National
Parliament’s State Function Room with the aim of bringing the
issues identified closer to the door steps of the policy and
decision makers.
Through the PhotoVoice Program MSPNG now has a better
understanding of the types of issues young people in different
communities are willing to discuss. One positive outcome so far
is that the young ones are looking for every opportunity to take
photos of issues they feel need urgent attention but often
neglected. Their curiosity has led them to photograph illegal
brothels, graffiti, deteriorating city hospitals and clinics,
littering, filthy city markets, urban drift and even some of the
beautiful locations in Port Moresby.
MSPNG is adamant to follow the leading voice in this project
Caroline Wang’s original idea of blending a grassroots approach
to photography and social action and to follow the idea that,
“What experts think is important may not match what people at
the grassroots think is important.”
PhotoVoice is a tremendous example of many sectors of our
community working together to achieve positive change.
 
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