Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, has been using the power of digital cameras to help women in Africa reclaim their voice. Her latest piece on TomDispatch is called “Me, I’m a Camera” African Women Making Change and in it, Jones documents how taking cameras to the Democratic Republic of Congo has helped the women to leave their victim status behind:
As a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), I go from country to country, running a simple little project dreamed up by the IRC’s Gender-Based Violence unit. (GBV is the gender-neutral term for what I still call VAW: Violence Against Women.) The project — dubbed A Global Crescendo: Women’s Voices from Conflict Zones — is meant to give women a chance to document their daily lives, their problems, their consolations and joys. It’s meant to give them time and space to talk together and come up with their own agenda for change.
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