PhotoVoice is an international non-profit organisation, based in London, UK. Our mission is empowerment – to support people in need around the world to use photography as a medium to speak out about their concerns, hopes and fears. Working alongside both international organizations and local partners, we provide in-field photojournalism workshops for those living on the fringes of society. Internationally we provide the platform for these groups to exhibit and market their work. This website www.photovoice.org provides the global forum for the practitioners and beneficiaries of participatory photography projects around the world through its closed forum.



Today – more than any other time in history – images bombard and envelop us. Television, print and the internet unceasingly present images of people to emulate or help, historical icons to remember, products we need. It is within this new world of constant visual imagery and the need for shock or aesthetic beauty that photojournalism today must compete – to make a single image stand out and to get us to take the image – and what it is depicting – seriously.



With visual saturation comes indifference – many of the images we witness of war or famine, disease or extreme difficulty no longer touch us – the people depicted are elsewhere – their plight irrelevant to our lives. Rarely do we have the opportunity to get close to these static people, to really glimpse their lives, to see them as active individuals with views and opinions rather than as helpless victims. This is what PhotoVoice can achieve.



By giving photographic training to the politically and economically voiceless. PhotoVoice enables its constituents to advocate for change themselves. Locally, their exhibits challenge the stigma and stereotyping of their daily lives. Internationally, their photos raise consciousness about the millions who live on the fringes of society. In truth, PhotoVoice projects enlarge the lives of its participants…and ours, too. Through witnessing the daily challenges as they see them, we get closer to truly understanding their lives and needs and are perhaps moved ourselves to help bring about change.





PhotoVoice work to:

Set up long-term photographic projects, training marginalised and disadvantaged groups worldwide in photojournalism skills

Provide a network and forum for participatory photography projects around the world.

Provide short-term training and consultancy to other development organisations wishing to introduce participatory photography into their work

Promote the images produced in participatory photography projects through the web, newsletters, mainstream media, development media, events and exhibitions

PhotoVoice projects:

Give a voice to those who are too often ignored or silenced

Provide a unique means for expression and creativity

Encourage participants to gain confidence in their capabilities and their role in civil society

Enable participants to become advocates for change

Images from PhotoVoice projects:

Provide alternative and more direct perspectives than images traditionally used in mainstream media

Raise awareness on local and international levels, among both policy makers and the general public

Can be used in school and NGO educational packs and resources

Can be used as a form of inter-cultural communication between participants from different projects and countries

Raise money for the continuation and expansion of PhotoVoice projects and to generate income for the photographers themselves.