FAQ_EN

FAQ

What is participatory photography?
A camera in the hands and many ideas in the head of the participants to produce images about their lives, their family, and their community.
Photos that serve as a starting point for a critical dialogue about their rights and duties as citizens, their projects and life histories, and the challenges they face in the context in which they live.
In practice, participants receive cameras to document their day-to-day lives. These images are then used to identify social problems, create dialogue and promote change in society. In this way, we get a unique view of the world of each individual who shares it in a direct, powerful, energetic and personal way.

What is the photovoice methodology?

It is the main methodology used in FOS projects. It translates into the use of photography as a basic tool that seeks action and social change.
Developed by the researchers Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris, photovoice is a word that simultaneously designates a methodology, a practice, and a concept, defining itself as follows:
A process by which people can identify, represent and reinforce their community through a specific photographic technique.
As a practice based on knowledge production, the photovoice process has three main objectives:
1- Empower people to record and reflect on their community’s strengths and concerns
2- promote critical dialogue and knowledge on important issues through discussion of photographs in large and small groups
3 – reaching policymakers.

In which areas of the world does FOS work?


Our geographical area is where there are people whose voices need to be heard. That is why we work globally. The projects developed came about in Lisbon because the people of the Association are and work here and of course our “networks” are here in the district and it was easier to start this way.
Then things happened, and by 2016 we had already “left Lisbon”. In 2015 we were partners of FEC (Faith and Cooperation) in the project “Children with Rights” to carry out a Photovoice process in Guinea Bissau and in Lisbon. Also in 2015, we were invited by IPAV to hold a workshop at the Ubuntu Academy, respectively in Lisbon and Porto.
In 2016 we were contacted by the Municipality of Santa Maria da Feira to hold a workshop that took place on April 30th.
And we have already made European applications in consortium with Italy and Spain that unfortunately have not been approved. But the bridges are made and we continue to network and want to do projects with these and other countries of course!

Tell me more about your team and how it works in the field.

We always work in pairs.
We design the project in teams that can be of two, three or four people, it varies, it depends on the type of project, the partnerships involved. When we go to the field we always go in pairs (sometimes in a trio, it happened already). This is about facilitating photography and photovoice processes, which are very rich from the point of view of story sharing, and logistically very demanding (many photos to download, view and analyse). They are more successful if we are two people facilitating. The process is all based on non-formal education and, as far as possible, participatory methodologies. Facilitating groups, and draw from each individual his/her greatest potential, it requires to be very attentive not only to the discourses of each one but to perceive how they influence the dynamics of the group and can influence or provoke reactions (positive and negative) in the other. It is very important to be aware of this. Hence in all cases, we are two people – we co-facilitate processes. When one is more “in the front line to lead an activity” the other “apparently” supports the logistics, but in fact, the second facilitator observes and pays attention to details and intervenes questioning here and there in order to ensure that no information is lost.

Regarding ages, what are your target group and specific areas of intervention?

From 6 to 96! 
When FOS emerged our priority was to start facilitating participatory photography processes and experimenting. There has been a lot of experimenting in these first five years!!! From there, we have already worked with different age groups and different target audiences. We also had (and still do!) the ambition to have a pool of participatory photography facilitators in our association each specialised in his/her target audience, according to their preferences, desires.

On average what is the duration of a project?

Hard question! The projects can last a week or a year two, three … it depends how they are designed, who requests this type of service and what one wants/intends to do with the use of this tool.
As a rule, a process has at least 10 to 12 sessions. And desirably one session per week so people have time to shoot during the week and process and go through what was covered in the sessions. 12 sessions are 3 months. But for various reasons, we have already been asked to do intensive projects in ten days or even a week.
The longer the project is, the better we can measure the social impact of it. We work with issues that take a long time to come to the surface and change is slow and most of the time does not happen from one day to the next. Longer projects allow us to explore creativity a lot, which brings almost always more reflection and depth, that in the medium to long-term, has a return not only in individual processes but also reflects itself in the visual dimension of the same.

How does FOS run a project? On your own, in partnership with other institutions?
Projects should always be developed in partnership with other organizations. Participatory photography and the photovoice methodology are in themselves an empowerment tool and therefore must be applied in a broader context of empowering individuals and their communities. It is very difficult, I would say even impossible (we had this experience) to make a process in an area where there is one local based association (association of residents, …) even with the support of the parish council – it is not enough. There must be more actors on the ground for a participatory photography project, with or without photovoice methodology, to have an impact in the community.

What role do companies have in this kind of initiatives? What is their level of [involvement]?


In the beginning, we started developing workshops very closely with Corporate Social Responsibility. These are half a day or a day long. In relation to companies, I will be honest: expectations were high since there were few people to use photography as a teambuilding action or even related to volunteering.
Although the activities have gone well, it is still a great challenge to work with companies since we work with few people at a time. At most, we can involve 40 people which, from the outset, is less attractive to a company that runs activities with 100 or more participants. Therefore, the presence of the companies is (still) not very expressive in the FOS portfolio. Working with companies is very different from working in the third sector. Language, goals and “understanding of the world” is distinct which implies different efforts in terms of creation, language modeling, product creation, development and prototyping, … and at some point things were naturally happening more with other social partners and not so much with business.
Five years is almost nothing in the life of an organisation, (…) when you are on the ground implementing projects we are not prospecting with companies, there is no time … unless we have a large team, which is not the case.
Nonetheless, we would like doing more workshops with companies and have some projects in the pipeline to develop.

Regarding the methodologies used, why does FOS choose Photovoice? Do you include other methodologies in your portfolio?

The team is very varied and changes. We collaborate with cultural mediators, photographers, community psychologists, social educators, and trainers. This is the basis of FOS which is very rich for being so eclectic. Behind people with this background, there is immense knowledge and work methodologies that only enrich the projects. Participatory photography had directly to do with the founder of the project, Ana Filipa Flores and her personal and professional career. She tells us that when she discovered the photovoice methodology, she realized that she could join the two worlds where she had always gravitated and done what she genuinely liked: working with people, helping them in their transformation process using art (in this case photography) as a training tool. She shared the methodology with her network of friends who worked with the most vulnerable communities and they immediately recognised in the methodology the enormous potential of training and change. Participatory Photography and the Photovoice methodology is core to our work, but in practice, we use many methodologies. At the beginning of the project we start by saying exactly what we did… we have powerpoints in the files that go like this:
“FOS uses visual and participatory methodologies in its action, works according to concepts derived from photojournalism and international cooperation, uses photography as a medium of expression using an empowerment approach and bases its action on the presuppositions of non-formal education. “
This is actually what we do but it is too much academic jargon and we dropped it ☺.