Our Project
In May 2017, Australian photographers and environmentalists Michael Chew and Emily Crawford will go to Dhaka, to run photo-voice workshops to empower youth in climate-vulnerable communities in Bangladesh. Photo-voice is a participatory action-research method combining photography workshops with social action and community engagement.
Working with youth groups in various urban locations within Dhaka, Bangladesh, these workshops and resulting exhibitions will provide valuable spaces for expression and action over climate change by and for the people who experience it first hand. They will also provide photography and social action training, and raise much needed funds for organisations who work tirelessly with some of Dhaka's poorest youths on an ongoing basis.
Why it matters, and how you can help
As researchers, environmentalists and artists, we believe that one of the biggest barriers to positive change in the fight against Climate Change and Poverty is disconnection. Disconnection from the impacts, the solutions, and in particular the people who are making change themselves. Art and Storytelling have a powerful ability to build connections, foster engagement and empathy, and hence contribute to building climate resilience and fostering positive social and environmental change.
*** While the trial workshops were run using mobile phone cameras, we are endeavouring to crowdsource a few digital cameras (8MP+) ! We will use some of the stretch goal to purchase used cameras, but if you are interested in donating a camera in Sydney or Melbourne, please contact us here: Michael (Melbourne) - [email protected] or Emily (Sydney) [email protected] ***
The photo-voice workshops
These workshops are in partnership with the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Jaago Foundation in Dhaka. Local staff and volunteers will be trained in photo-voice methods, and will deliver the workshops themselves which will focus on empowering youth to use photography to tell their own stories. The workshops will cover basic photography training, discussions of environmental and climate change issues, ideation over local solutions, and story sharing techniques. By the end of the workshops the youth will have created their own photo-stories to share with the world.
We are passionate about encouraging marginal voices – those who experience the brunt of climate change impacts - to be heard and be connected to broader communities around the world.
Exhibiting the work of the students will not only raise critical funds for host organisations through the sale of prints, but it will boost the esteem and personal capacity of the students, who will then be internationally exhibiting artists as well as change-makers!
Please help us share these important stories from the front line of climate change - help fight disconnection and apathy, and foster connection and positive change.
In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, beyond building local capacity and empowering individuals, we aim to use this project as an opportunity to investigate how creativity and photography can contribute to the realisation for Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
Rewards
As we will be teaming up with some incredible local fair trade organisations in Dhaka and surrounds, so not only will you be supporting this project, you will also be supporting and helping to protect and employ local artisans and sustainable craft trades.
Our main partner for rewards will be Prokritee: https://www.prokritee.com
Examples of options:
(specific colours and more options will be given to choose from once we arrive!)
LEVEL 1: Choose two small options, such as recycled sari napkins or wallet, bhodi leaf garland, pathi grass place mats, jute and hemp twine, naturally dyed batik notebooks, handmade soap and bracelets.
LEVEL 2: choose from screen printed t-shirts (more prints available), naturally hand dyed silk or woven scarves, hand woven shawls or recycled sari hand sewn cushion covers. Not pictured: recycled sari handbags and naturally dyed batik fabric for the crafty.
LEVEL 3: Will be completely curated for you! But options include shibori silk saris, hand woven wall hanging art works, and recycled sari crochet blankets. Many more options available depending on what you are looking for.
Bangladesh Land and People photogaphy book
This gorgeous hardcover photography book shows a rich collection of stories of hope and despair, of the difficult realities of life and inspiring spirit to surmount them – from Bangladesh. The people and the land of this country come alive through vivid images, spread across 80 pages, the best selection of the 10000+ photographs that Michael took in his year in Bangladesh. See a sample here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/111701991/SampleBanglad...
Local Partners
International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
The aim of ICCCAD is to develop a world-class institution that is closely related to local experience, knowledge and research in one of the countries that is most affected by climate change. It is our mission to gain and distribute knowledge on climate change and, specifically, adaptation and thereby helping people to adapt to climate change with a focus on the global south. By focusing on such work in Bangladesh, ICCCAD allows international participants to gain direct knowledge of the issues in a real-world context. Through the expertise of ICCCAD and its local partners, international organisations will be exposed to relevant and grounded knowledge that can be shared and transmitted around the world for the benefit of other LDCs, and their governments, donors and international NGOs.
One of ICCCAD's learning for climate adaptation workshops
Jaago Foundation
JAAGO Foundation is a movement initiated by a group of young dedicated Bangladeshi volunteers to break the poverty cycle in Bangladesh. They focus mainly on battling illiteracy and malnutrition in children and on rehabilitating them to better living environments and social conditions. They are currently dedicated to conducting activities to provide more long-term and sustainable benefits to children from families who are living below the poverty line.
http://www.jaago.com.bd
A Jaago student
Who we are
Michael Chew (see 30 sec project video here!)
I’m a photographer and passionate environmentalist who has spent the last decade working to try to engage people in Australia to reduce our environmental and climate impacts. Throughout this time I've had some little victories and plenty of times feeling totally overwhelmed by the scale of the problems! After one particularly lucid moment I realised that such work here is only half of the picture – the other half was told through the impacts of climate change on people least able to cope - on the other side of the world. So five years ago I volunteered in Bangladesh for year – population 150 million and at extreme climate risk –seeing firsthand these heart-rending impacts, from coastal villagers crying over their relatives lost in cyclones to urban slum dwellers who are facing increasing water shortages.
But amongst the suffering there was also hope – not necessarily in the form of aid from rich countries or trade flows - but from the resilience of the people themselves: Poor village women who had gathered together to rebuild their local bridge that had washed away; families living in slums who bravely took to the streets and faced the police to protest the clearing of their homes without notice; Indigenous people who take the stand to hold onto their traditional knowledge and crop varieties against all odds.
Before I left Bangladesh I made a promise to myself to share these stories with my own communities back home in Australia, and that I did, setting up Friends of Bangladesh back in Melbourne in 2012 and then starting this parent project - the Climate Resilience Media Exchange - that uses participatory photography and storytelling to document, share, and showcase emerging grassroots responses to climate impacts across urban communities in Bangladesh, China and Australia. http://www.greenphotovoice.org/
Emily Crawford
I grew up in the Blue Mountains National Park, Australia, and have had a firm sense of connection and justice from early on. An artist and anthropologist at heart, I've completed studies in Environmental Humanities, Anthropology and Sociology, International Development and Fine Arts. I believe creativity and imagination hold important keys as we navigate through uncertain times.
My research and work has taken me around Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific and I look forward to facilitating photography workshops in Bangladesh and other locations, and forming sustainable and collaborative partnerships with communities and organisations at home and internationally.
I'm driven by using research, creative writing, visual art, community work and activism to foster social change, environmental justice, and ultimately in creating a fairer, more connected, more imaginative world for everyone (inclusive of non-humans!).
Questions?
Michael - [email protected]
Emily - [email protected]