Physical Health Kenya Project #6600

Create a TB Photovoice project in Kenya

by TB Photovoice

Project Report | Aug 28, 2013
TB Voices Project Under Way!

By Teresa Rugg | Project Director

Lynda Shepard, 20 years after her TB experience

Dear TB Photovoice Family,

We hope you have all had a relaxing and memorable summer with friends and family. We certainly have, but we have also been very busy with the TB Voices Project!

Since March 2013, we have been working hard to give the Snohomish and King County, Washington communities the opportunity to share their TB experiences. We have had participants from nearly every decade coming forward to share how they have been impacted by TB, some who have never spoken about their perspectives and true feelings about the experience. They have all stated that they hope that their story will give encouragement to those impacted by TB today, and it is our hope that TB Photovoice assists in making this happen. We are collecting these stories through video and audio recordings, and photos. We will utilize our website and community exhibitions, and health care provider presentations to highlight the themes of these narratives (in early 2014). The exhibitions and presentations will also share the perspectives of TB Photovoice projects from around the globe, so as to provide the local community with an understanding of how TB is impacting the world.

Here are a few quotes from two of our participants. Their pictures are attached:

"I had tuberculosis in 1993, when I was homeless. I had it full blown. They put me in quarantine on my birthday. That’s okay, I didn’t want to be around anybody on my birthday anyway. It was terrible. I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody. It was absolutely horrible. It was a bad case of affairs. I was even trying to hide from the Snohomish Health Department when they found me. I tried the program for a while and I just kept getting sicker and sicker, so I guess that was part of the course, so I went and hid from Snohomish County Health Department. Turns out, they saved my life." ---Lynda from Everett, WA

"The TB Voices Project has been a bittersweet experience. I learned more about my grandmother and have great respect for what she went through. As part of this process, I saw my grandfather in a new light. Before, I didn't really appreciate his struggle to raise four small children on his own. Knowing some of the facts has allowed me to adjust my attitude toward him --which had been pretty negative. Thanks for the opportunity to delve into my family's past and actually heal some hurts."----Joan from Lynnwood, WA (her grandmother died of TB in 1917)

Take a look at our redesigned website and perhaps you too can contribute a TB story of your own!

Our group in Kenya is moving along and this fall they intend to use our website to document their stories! Check out our Facebook page for updates!

Thank you for your continued support and compassion.

Sincerely,

Teresa Rugg

TB Photovoice Project Director

Joan's grandmother Nora

Links:

TB Photovoice website: access to the TB Voices Project

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May 28, 2013
TB Voices Project Comes to Life

By Teresa Rugg | TB Voices Project on the rise!

TB Voices Project for Snohomish and King County,WA

Dear TB Photovoice Family,

We are happy to report that our revamped TB Photovoice website is now ready to go for persons willing to contribute their personal TB stories to the TB Voices Project for Snohomish and King County, Washington! With funding from the Firland Foundation for this year long project, we spent March and April preparing for the implementation of this project that will bridge the gap between a local and global TB experiences.

How the TB Voices Project Works:

We are assisting participants, with their permission, to document their TB experience using either photos, video/voice recordings, and/or their written story. With the participants' consent, we will share their insights through our TB Photovoice website and at various community education opportunities/events. These life stories can help others around the globe currently impacted by TB. Participants may choose to be anonymous.

In gathering TB stories, TB Voices will create a community capacity for global TB awareness by collaborating and drawing parallels between our TB Photovoice Projects in other countries and Washington state TB realities. This will give us the opportunity to amplify the voices of persons impacted by TB in Pakistan, South Africa, and Mexico.

If you have friends, colleagues, or family members living in King or Snohomish County who may be interested in learning about the TB Voices Project, please help us sharing our website with them. However, anyone with a TB story is welcome to share on our website.

We also encourage you to reflect on your family history. As you know, at the turn of the century and into the 1950s, many families across all social classes in the U.S. were impacted by TB. My own Grandmother Ole lived in a TB sanatorium for 4 years, from the time my mother was in 4th grade until she was in 7th grade. One of my mother's most vivid memory of that time period was visiting her mother a couple times a month, but only to speak to her through a window-- standing outside in the wet, Washington weather. There are stories to be heard and these stories will encourage and inspire those impacted by TB today.

Thank you for your continued support and compassion.

Sincerely,

Teresa Rugg

TB Photovoice Project Director

Links:

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Mar 1, 2013
U.S. and Global TB stories

By Teresa Rugg | TB Photovoice Director

Greetings TB Photovoice family,

As many of you know, Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease the has been around since ancient times. Not one country, developed or developing, has been able to completely eradicate this adaptable bacteria. Every country has their own unique story about the impact this disease has had on individuals and communities.

We believe it would be a powerful activity to document the histories and current perspectives of persons impacted by TB in a region of the U.S. and combine this with the knowledge obtained from our global TB Photovoice groups.

Our most recent collaboration within Pakistan, where 58,000 people died from TB in 2010, highlighted many challenges and supportive factors that confront a person experiencing TB. The number of TB cases in 2010 in the United States, around 10,000, is not even comparable to the 400,000 cases in Pakistan. Yet, humanity is our common denominator. The more we understand the complexities of TB in a given location, the more we can create solutions to the root causes of TB.

TB Photovoice is honored to collaborate with the Firland Foundation, near Seattle, Washington, to conduct a yearlong project that will allow community members in two counties to document their personal TB stories.

We want to inform and share personal TB narratives with this local region in Washington state so that we begin to understand our past, provide the community and TB health care professionals insight into the personal experience of TB, and create an awareness of the current, complex struggles that plague global communities.

We hope you will support us in this new project that will combine the voices of persons impacted by TB who have participated in our TB Photovoice groups in Mexico, South Africa, and Pakistan, with those in Washington state. We will update you on the details of this project as they develop. By World TB Day, in March 2014, we intend to have an exhibition that highlights this year long process.

Thank you all for your tremendous support over the years. We have learned so much from our TB Photovoice groups and it is a privilege to share these stories with a regional U.S. story that has yet to be heard.

In partnership,

Teresa

Links:

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