Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, has been using the power of digital cameras to help women in Africa reclaim their voice. Her latest piece on TomDispatch is called “Me, I’m a Camera” African Women Making Change and in it, Jones documents how taking cameras to the Democratic Republic of Congo has helped the women to leave their victim status behind:

As a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), I go from country to country, running a simple little project dreamed up by the IRC’s Gender-Based Violence unit. (GBV is the gender-neutral term for what I still call VAW: Violence Against Women.) The project — dubbed A Global Crescendo: Women’s Voices from Conflict Zones — is meant to give women a chance to document their daily lives, their problems, their consolations and joys. It’s meant to give them time and space to talk together and come up with their own agenda for change.

Digital cameras are the tool. I arrive with them and lend them to women, most of whom have never seen a camera before. I teach them to point and shoot — only that — and then I turn them loose to snap what they will. I ask them to bring me some photos of their problems and their blessings. They work in teams, two or three women sharing a camera and very nervous at first. (Some women actually shake.) It takes the whole team to snap the first photos: one holds the camera, another points, another shoots. The teamwork they build is a step to solidarity. [TomDispatch]

to read the entire piece

Watch the video below of Ann talking about her experience and read on:

• The War against Women : A Dispatch from the West African Front
• Bringing Down the House - Ann Jones in Sierra Leone
• Ann Jones Writer/Photographer