Sometimes I wonder if people will ever be desensitized to images of emaciated children covered in flies and war-torn mothers struggling to nurse their babies. Organizations keep spewing these images because it tugs at donors’ heartstrings, but how much is too much? After a while, wouldn’t these morbid and depressing pictures make donors wonder: “Why are children still hungry after so much money has been donated? Are these donations not working? If it’s not working, maybe I should stop giving.” These images are known as poverty porn, “any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause.” There are always two sides to the story and poverty porn only shows the poor at their worst; not at their best. It depicts the poor as victims; not as survivors. Poverty porn does not capture their resourcefulness and resiliency; their creativity and intelligence; their capability and determination.
After stumbling across Ashoka’s Start Empathy blog post, The Misguided Focus of Advocacy Photography, I realized that award-winning photographer and development practitioner Meredith Hutchison and R4D share the same vision for the people we aim to serve. Through her Vision Not Victim Project, Meredith aims “to produce images that both inform and transform; images that highlight the power, abilities, and vision of people living in situations of conflict and poverty; images that humanize rather than victimize.”
Uplifting photos are indicative of change, which convey to donors that their donations can have a real impact. As part of combatting the way the general public views the poor, we’ve dedicated our Tumblr to feature these individuals, not as victims, but as creators of their own solutions. Our favorite entries include:
- Sam Toda, a Togolese student who build robots out of old TV parts;
- a community that works with HugItForward.org to build schools out of water bottles;
- and a musician in Africa who built his very own guitar using and old Castro Oil tin can.
Meredith’s Vision Not Victim Projectwill go a long way toward changing how nonprofits use advocacy images. She will be working with women’s organization in the Democratic Republic of Congo to photograph young Congolese women posing as their future selves. These photos will be showcased in communities across Congo and in a New York City gallery. To begin her project, she needs to raise $6,500. With 13 days left, she is $3,445 short of her fundraising goal. To help Meredith realize her project, please click here to donate.
And even if you’re not Tumblr-savvy, you can sign up to receive posts by email when you visit R4Development.tumblr.com.
Image credit: Espen Faugstad
Monica Wong is interning at Results for Development Institute.
