participate in a global photography campaign
14:33, 28 August 2009
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The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, part of the United Nations Development Programme, is sponsoring a Global Photography Campaign, "Humanizing Development". Anyone, anywhere, is invited to contribute photos that show promoting inclusive development, gender equality and/or democratic governance. The campaign is intended to counterbalance the frequently shown images of desolation and despair. Success is happening in development -- it's time that everyone mobilize to show it!Everyone and anyone can contribute photographs: professional and amateur photographers, students, civil society activists, government officials, UN staff members, travelers, aid workers, whomever.
The campaign will be open for submissions from 1 June to 1 October 2009. Photographs need to be sent through the form on the web site.
A photo gallery will to be permanently located at IPC-IG office and open for public visitation. A series of photo exhibitions will also be organized in several cities around the world.
On a related note: While I was in Afghanistan, I uploaded photos taken by staff long before I arrived in the country, as well as by colleagues while I was in the country, to Flickr. These included photos of a joint program by the Afghanistan Ministry for Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and UNDP engaged in community organizing and staff, mostly Afghan staff, in action in the field. I also trained staff in how to take photos in the field.
Our communications office got so many comments from Afghan expats thrilled to see such positive images from their home country, as well as positive comments from the press, from other development agencies who wanted to use the photos, etc. Sharing these photos got our own staff members excited about the work they were doing, and internal staff started using photos much more in their reports. Our program ended up receiving much more attention than ever in various publications, like the UNDP annual report, because of these photos shared on Flickr.
If you want to share photos on online, it is essential that you
- Put detailed descriptions on photos when you upload them, describing what is happening in the photo. Include the name of your organization and individual program, as well as the city and country where the photo is taken, in every photo.
- Be sure to use tags for the photo if you want the photo to show up in photo searches using words that aren't in the description (such as "gender and development" or "participatory development", etc.).
