Saying 'yes' for children through photography

"Some things we cannot say with words. And some emotions are better expressed through pictures."

This is how Nguyen Chau Thuy Trang explains why she takes photographs of disadvantaged children in her country, Vietnam. By capturing her feelings through the camera lens, she provides a window for others to understand more about the lives of these children.

With photography we can override language, and fully convey our ideas. Two of Nguyen's photographs were shown in New York at a PhotoVoice exhibition. Street Vision, a PhotoVoice project, works with former and existing street and working children in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The Street Vision project has been running since 1998 and has trained 120 young people in Ho Chi Minh City in photographic and documentary skills. Their work has been shown in all the national papers in Vietnam and is exhibited annually. A number of students now earn an income through their work.

Nguyen Chau Thuy Trang is one of the young photographers on the Street Vision project in Vietnam. She joined the course when she was 15 years old. In May she was one of two students invited to attend the United National Special Session on the Rights of the Child in New York.

PhotoVoice is a small specialist non-profit organization working to further the role of participatory photography projects within international development.

To find out more about Street Vision or other PhotoVoice projects please go to http:www.photovoice.org or contact Anna Blackman at: [email protected].

COPYRIGHT 2003 International Child Art Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group