Raising Voices Phase II - Kenya

Raising Voices Phase II Second Report The Mathare Foundation has made progressive steps since receiving the Global Giving grants. We have not disappointed as usual. It is an impeccable work that we have done with dedicated team of both trainees and trainers. The photography trainings have, been going own successful with a focus on the both the technical aspect of photography and issues related to life skills. It will be redundant to only teach photography as an art and forget how life skills play a fundamental role in practical photography. Essentially our course is tailored around training photography through life skills. It is for that reason that we adopted the Life Skills and Photography curriculum that is used with members of Alliance of Slum Media Organizations where we are an affiliate member. We have had a couple of success stories since the young budding photographers can actually now work together as a team since during the group discussion that the tutors organize they not only talk about photography but also how they can work together on other issues affecting them in their own society. We were able to organize the Animals Raising Voices Photo exhibitions at the Alliance Francaise (The French Cultural Center in Nairobi). This is after a series of photography workshops and field excursion both in the National Park and in the slums. Here are some of the milestones of the projects so far (i) Improved skills level among the participants (ii) Some of the participants are capable of doing semiprofessional photography jobs in events. (iii) 10 participants have mastered the art of doing animal (wildlife) photography (iv) Emergence of young role models who are viewed as peace ambassadors (v) Generation of income for the photographers. During the photo exhibition we were able to sell photos for $80. The funds were then channeled to support the activities of Mathare Foundation and also cover school fees for 2 participants. (vi) Awareness creation to the general public what the Mathare Foundation does in terms of impacting the lives of young people in the slums of Mathare These milestones speaks volume without a doubt. We are going to continue with this trend until we achieve our overall goal.