By Claire Allen | AmeriCorps VISTA
Critical Exposure spent the fall and winter teaching two series of photography workshops to students at Martin Luther King Elementary School and Ballou Senior High School, both in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC.
At MLK Elementary, students completed photo essays and captions on changes they wished to see in their schools and neighborhoods. "Dear Mayor Fenty," wrote one sixth grader, Kayla, in a letter to accompany her photos of an abandoned library building. "I am afraid we have an issue that is involving our buildings in our community. Our public libraries have writing on the walls but they carry such beautiful books. Imagine how it affects people!"
At Ballou High School, students created photo essays in response to questions such as, "What is Education?" Their photos depicted decrepit school facilities like unused lockers, bathrooms without paper or hot water, broken heating and cooling systems, and fire damage in the school hallways. The students also chose to document their school's assets, including a new library, gym, and football field.
See below for some of our students' work from this fall. Thanks for all your support empowering students to advocate for school reform through documentary photography!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
