Concept.
Imagine when the stories you hear from the poorest communities are not driven by the voices of big NGOs, media outlets and powerful authorities, but the people in those communities. This is what we did with Reframe The City, a project developed and produced for Plan International. Along with an interactive multimedia platform, we trained young people in slum communities in seven countries around the world to report their stories with photography and use it in multiple forms to amplify their voices both locally as well as globally.
Those stories, shared via Instagram, reached far and close and were used to create awareness for their situation with local authorities, communicate with other slum communities and students in Europe. The multimedia platform was used for fundraising efforts and development education, while the images and videos also supported the communication efforts of the Plan staff with supporters and for publications, both in the organisations magazine as well as newspapers. In addition the projects ideas were further integrated into the monitoring strategy of Plan International.
Learn.
An integral part of Reframe the City were workshops, conducted in all of the slum communities with young people. There they learned the basics of photography and storytelling to start sharing their stories and ideas from their perspective and with their focus.
Tell.
Beside the stories and images from the youth, we also developed ideas for relevant stories in the workshop together with the youth. Those then got told through short video stories and portraits.
Create & Share.
Instagram worked as a central hub for the images and stories shared by the youth. Each community has its own account to share from. Those images then were used both locally to bring it to local authorities to create awareness for change, but also internationally for project monitoring, dialog between communities and development education and communication.
