In our Photovoice project
A parents group formed at the peer group meetings of the ”More charge and participation”project carried out a Photovoice project, in other words, the parents group collected a photo story of their lives to be displayed to the outside world.Our photo story exhibition can be viewed here.
Our Photovoice project had several stages. At first the parents were presented the aim of the project which was to take photos of important things in their lives and to possibly organise an exhibition. Our idea was based on a Photovoice project involving mothers with an intellectual disability in Great Britain. Our group became interested in the idea and worked persistently and enthusiastically to the end of the project.
Ten parents took part in our Finnish Photovoice project. Each of them was given a single use camera with 27 exposures. Their task was to take photos of meaningful things in their lives. After this the parents told the stories related to the photos to the project worker in private. At the same meeting they chose the photo stories to be shown to the whole group and of these further selected the possible exhibition photos. In addition, the parents worked on the texts for the exhibition photos. The peer group viewed the photo stories by the other participants. Finally, the parents met to choose the most expressive photos and to write the texts into their final form.
Before the actual work we discussed photography in general and the use of single use cameras with the parents. In addition, we thought about different ways how to use photos as a means of influence and how to analyse them. Issues such as lack of parents' possibility to influence and negative attitudes towards parents with an intellectual disability had come up at the previous peer group meetings. The families felt that the environment regards them as incable of raising children and in need of help and support. The Photovoice project gave the families as a group a possibility to show the outside world their view on their own everyday life. Policymakers and other viewers belonging to the families' support network can share the photos and the simplified impressive stories connected to them with the parents.
On the basis of the photos, important things in the parents' lives were family, relatives, children, children's joy, the importance of holidays, the significance of independent thinking and humour to cheer up everyday life.
For more information on the project please contact Project Organiser Pia Henttonen (tel. + 358 50 3029 608, ) or Coordinator Pia Björkman (tel. +358 50 5288 381, ).