GrOW Program: PhotoVoice - a tool for reseach and community engagement

In the spirit of knowledge sharing among GrOW partners, the McGill team for the project Improving childcare options to create better economic opportunities for women in Nairobi slums will be leading a technical training on how to use Photovoice as a tool for research and community engagement. Presenters will share their experiences using PhotoVoice in their fieldwork in the Korogocho slum and beyond; discuss how the local women have responded to it; and share how the team foresees using this tool for research uptake.

Join Claudia Mitchell, Jennifer Thompson, and Lysanne Rivard from McGill University in a conversation on how you can use arts-informed methodologies, like PhotoVoice, in your own project. The GrOW program is organizing this learning session to encourage projects to exchange ideas on your plans for communications and policy influence.

Who are our presenters?

Claudia Mitchell is a James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, where she directs the Participatory Cultures Lab. She is also an Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. Her research cuts across visual and other participatory methodologies in relation to youth, gender and sexuality, girls’ education, and critical areas of international development linked to gender and HIV&AIDS. She is the author and co-editor of more than 20 books, including Doing Visual Research, Putting People in the Picture, Picturing Research: Drawing as Visual Methodology, and the Handbook of Participatory Video. She is also the co-founder and editor of Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Jennifer Thompson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. With a background in environment engineering, her doctoral work interrogates issues related to gender and water management in Southwestern Cameroon. Jennifer has explored the use of participatory and arts-informed methodologies such as photovoice, collage, documentary film and participatory video across varied contexts. Projects have included community-based conservation in Sierra Leone, and gender and post-harvest management in Ethiopia.

Lysanne Rivard is a PhD candidate in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. Her doctoral research focused on secondary schoolgirls’ lived experiences of physical education and sport activities in Rwanda and the use of Photovoice to foreground and communicate their concerns to key decision makers in practical and timely ways.

How to Take Part:

After registering for the event on this page, you will receive a set of instructions for how to participate in the event. You can access those instructions here as well.

1. On Thursday June 4, starting at 8:30AM, you can visit this link to access the meeting room: http://secgovgroup.adobeconnect.com/grow/

2. When the page loads, check "Enter as a Guest" and enter your full first and last name, and click "enter room."

3. The event will feature live audio and video presentations (don’t forget to turn on the audio on your computer, or your headphones!). Throughout the event, you will be able to participate by typing your contributions on your keyboard.

4. Questions? Contact Alejandra Vargas at grow@idrc.ca

5. Technical issues? Contact Geoff Burt at gburt@secgovgroup.com

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