PhotoAid Global is the UK based photography service that connects photographers to charities and NGOs both here in the UK and abroad, and also curates exhibitions to drive awareness and revenue for good causes.
Workaid, winner of the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, tackles poverty by providing disadvantaged people with the tools they need to learn a skilled trade and earn a living. Since 1986, Workaid has helped around 100,000 disadvantaged people to break the cycle of poverty and build better lives for themselves and their families.
How did the partnership come about?
Dr Vanessa Champion is founder of PhotoAid and lives in Tring in Hertfordshire, she was looking for someone to fix up the old cameras that PhotoAid receives as donations. Mutual friends recommended she contact Workaid, based in neighbouring Chesham. One brainstorming meeting later with Rob Levine, chairman of Workaid, a partnership was forged.
“It’s great to form partnerships with organisations we have real synergies with and PhotoAid is definitely one of those.” Said Rob Levine. “At Workaid we are updating our website and social media presence; arresting and exciting photos are a critical part of that. When we connected with Vanessa it was clear that she had just the sort of skills and connections to help us down that path. Brilliantly, she is also building our own capabilities so that we are enabled to take better photos ourselves and can take advantage of opportunities whenever they arise. Ultimately all this will help us to attract more donors and volunteers, and give more meaningful and engaging feedback to those we already have.”
“I am so pleased to be partnering and supporting Workaid, their ethics and energy match ours,” said Vanessa. “We are running training workshops with their staff so they can take their own photos for website and social media collateral, plus running a ‘Volunteer’s Voice’, ‘If Tools could talk’, and hopefully helping to document the projects they are doing actually on the ground in Africa. Also Workaid are kindly storing the cameras people donate to us in their warehouse and helping to ship them to Africa for us. Note, that we also distribute our recycled cameras here in the UK and Europe.”
One of PhotoAid’s main photographers is David Newton, known to many in the photography world. David teaches extensively for Canon and also presents for SanDisk, Manfrotto and Lastolite, giving presentations and workshops all over the world. He, along with Ness, is running the first workshop at Workaid.
“In my work I spend a lot of time ‘taking’ pictures. The whole language around photography is in taking or capturing something, but there is very little giving. PhotoAid, and the partnership with Workaid, offers me the opportunity to give something back instead.”
PhotoAid is heading out to India in April for the charity, Born to be Beautiful. Later in the year we are also curating an exhibition of photography in the UK from the children of Ana by Karma, a charity based in Bhutan.
If you have old cameras, would like to be part of PhotoAid as a photographer, supporter or other capacity, or can donate time to fix up old cameras do get in touch with Vanessa at PhotoAid makeadifference@photoaid.org.uk “We all have something to give, and it’s like kick-starting positive karma, you give a little and buckets of goodness come back to you in return. Thanks to everyone in the industry who is supporting us, it means a lot.”
PhotoAid – Making a difference, one image at a time.
Some background on PhotoAid and Workaid:
PhotoAid Our Mission – PhotoAid Global celebrates photojournalism which inspires understanding and action through visual documentary. Covering human and animal rights & environmental awareness.
PhotoAid Services: Photography and Video, Expertise, Opportunities (see more below)
www.photoaid.org.uk make@difference@photoaid.org.uk
Workaid, winner of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, tackles poverty by providing disadvantaged people with the tools they need to learn a skilled trade and earn a living. Since 1986, WORKAID has helped around 100,000 disadvantaged people to break the cycle of poverty and build better lives for themselves and their families. They accept donations of unwanted tools and equipment which are collected from all over the UK and refurbished by a team of dedicated volunteers at the Workaid workshop. The refurbished tools are then sent to vocational training projects where they help vulnerable and disadvantaged people to learn trade skills and start their own businesses.
- Photography and Video
We source professional photographers in different parts of the world to document your charity’s story. We have been generously supported by Fujifilm UK, Loxley, Genesis Imaging, and others.
- Expertise
PhotoAid provides full service support from booking a photographer right through to the design of a book, organizing an exhibition or creating an event.
We also run educational programmes here in the UK and on location, with photographers and local people, from the youngest child to the oldest grandmother!
Talks – invite us to speak to your club or group. We give advice on how to monetise your photography when you return, raise awareness of your cause, and tell inspirational stories, of which there are many from standing in a deafening silence while surrounded by 200 Ankoli cattle in the heart of Africa to covert photography in a third-world prison …
We know and work with highly trained and motivated photographers, all of whom have stories to tell. If you are interested in hosting a talk or lecture do get in touch. Read some fascinating stories on F8, the editorial and news publishing arm of PhotoAid.
One of our board of advisors is an expert on central and eastern Africa and can give valuable advice on the region, and who can also visit your company/ organisation to advise in more detail. We also have an expert on security in the Middle East and other conflict zones. Confidentiality assured.
- Opportunities
PhotoAid Global helps broker photography with NGOs doing good in remote places around the world. Offering unique life-changing experiences for the photographer and financial and awareness life-lines to these smaller charities who are working at grassroots level. A perfect symbiosis to pull all the threads together. On a global scale.
We also support local charities from Rotary to Youth football associations, amateur groups desperately needing promotional images through to helping give opportunities to up-and-coming photographers.
Our Founder, Dr Vanessa Champion, is a former London newspaper Editor, published writer, international art and photography judge, and documentary photographer. She is also Director of Dragonfly Communications, based in the UK and Direcotr of ARGENTA Fine Art. She will be your point of contact for marketing support and advice.
Connect on Social media:
Twitter @PhotoAidGlobal
Instagram @photoaid
Facebook PhotoaidGlobal
giving wings to business for over 20 years 