Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field

Giacomo Pirozzi, a UNICEF photographer doing this remarkable work, sums up the power of the program: "If a child comes from a special experience, being a survivor like in Beslan, or being in a refugee camp, a camera becomes a servant of that."

What better way to understand a child's experience than to ask that child to capture it?

Our photographers teach the basics of technique and then work with the children to craft a theme and choose subjects, which are often inspired by situations from the children’s lives. Then, armed with digital cameras supplied by corporate sponsors, the young photographers take to the streets of their communities.

© UNICEF/ HQ05-1334/Soslan Dzugaev

RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Child’s View — A bumblebee lands on a yellow daisy in the town of Beslan. This photograph—voted ‘Best Photograph’ by the group—was taken in the yard of Soslan Dzugaev, 13, one of 13 participants in a UNICEF-organized photography workshop marking the one-year anniversary of the siege on Beslan’s School No. 1.

While the project is certainly fun, it also provides children with essential psychosocial support. UNICEF’s psychosocial support initiatives provide for children’s emotional well-being and development, not just their health and safety. The photography program helps restore a sense of normalcy, equips children with the skills to cope with adversity, offers opportunities to rebuild their future and enhances the capability of the people around them to support those efforts.

Amanda Melville, a Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Headquarters, explains: "Cameras can be used as a way for children to come to terms with the reality of what they're experiencing. The camera is a particularly powerful tool: suddenly instead of being passive victims, they can view, and have views on, how the world is—and express their views on how it should be."

Pirozzi shared some stories that illustrate how the simple act of taking a photo can be so meaningful to a young person. The workshops, besides sharing children's perspectives with the world, often help them to access their own feelings—especially after traumatic experiences. On the first anniversary of the siege of School Number 1 in Beslan, Russia, Pirozzi led a photo workshop that included former hostages.

"One of the girls in the workshop one day began to cry. Then I find out, this is the first time she has cried about this, almost a year later! After all this time, she finally said she wanted to go to therapy, like the other kids. She had everything inside, and now she had this opportunity to express it—it was a kind of art therapy."

© UNICEF/ HQ06-1682/Mary Joy Dabi

PHILIPPINES: Child’s View – A child lives in a settlement for people displaced by conflict in the village of Layog in Maguindanao Province. This photograph was taken by Mary (Joy) Dabi, 17. She is one of 15 children who participated in a UNICEF-organized photography workshop for children affected by conflict on Mindanao Island.

Another workshop took place in the Philippines, in the midst of a decades-long armed conflict between Muslims and Christians. Here, misunderstanding, fear and isolation have marked many a childhood.

The workshop broke down cultural barriers: "Many had never held a camera, and many had never met children from the other background," Pirozzi said. "At the end of the workshop, I had one Muslim boy say to me, 'I've been sitting for the first time with 15 children around the same table, and for the first time I realized they [the Christian children] were children just like us.'"

I'll share some of the other important aspects of this program in two additional blog posts, coming soon, but I leave you with a photo that truly does the work of a thousand words.

What would otherwise be a tragically typical image of a displaced child—dirty blue jumper and wide eyes—is transformed by the words of the 12-year-old photographer, Herash Ghader. We see jaded misfortune give way to defiant hope with his caption. It reads: “I promise I'll never remain a refugee.”

© UNICEF/ HQ05-2036/Herash Ghader

IRAN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF: Child’s View – A child stands at a wall in a refugee camp in the north-western city of Orumieh, capital of West Azarbaijan Province. “I promise I’ll never remain a refugee” is the caption given by refugee Herash Ghader, 12. He was one of the 16 winners in the ‘Excluded and Invisible’ photography competition.