We often share the good news from Cameras For Girls. The students who find paid work, the graduates who become trainers, the workshops that bring young women together, and the progress we are making toward building career pathways in media.
But what happens when things don’t go according to plan? I believe we have a responsibility to share those stories, too.
We can invest in infrastructure, strengthen our local team, plan our programs carefully, and build relationships with community partners. But no matter how much preparation goes into our work, we cannot anticipate everything that might happen.
What we can control is how we respond, what we learn, and what we change.
Our recent three-day alumni training in Uganda reminded me of this. And while I wish certain things had gone differently, I also believe being honest about the experience is critical, because only then can we learn how to shift to positive change in our systems.
If transparency is something we value at Cameras For Girls, then it has to apply when things go wrong, not just when we have an impact story to celebrate.
Cameras For Girls students on a field practical day, Uganda October 2026 Photo by Melanie Joyce Nabukwasi
What We Had Planned for Our Alumni Training
Our Uganda team and I had spent months preparing for a three-day alumni training, bringing together 25 graduates from our five cohorts.
Originally scheduled for April 2026, we eventually moved the training to October because the Ebola crisis had disrupted the schedule. We had developed a robust curriculum that would allow our alumni to revisit what they had learned in photography, including the exposure triangle, composition, and other technical skills, while placing greater emphasis on something we know they need more support with: business skills, specifically how to build up their business skills and understanding to translate this to paid work.
Although we cover business development throughout our year-long program, we have learned that not every student fully understands how to apply those lessons when they begin looking for paid work.
Knowing how to use a camera is one thing. Knowing how to price your services, negotiate with a client, develop a professional portfolio, and turn your skills into an income is another.
We wanted this alumni training to help close that gap.
Initially, for the third day, we had planned a practical assignment with a local organization that teaches women to weave. It would allow our graduates to practice ethical storytelling, work directly with a community organization, and add meaningful work to their portfolios.
This is standard practice for all our workshops: we take what they learned in the classroom into the real world so they can build their storytelling skills, their portfolios, and, most importantly, their confidence in working with the local community.
Unfortunately, because our dates had changed, the organization could no longer accommodate us. We needed to find another partner and fast.
When Plans Changed, and Things Went Wrong
Wanting to give our alumni a different experience, we connected with a man who runs a chess club for young people in Kampala. This man, who will remain unnamed, had wanted to work with Cameras For Girls for a few years, but the opportunity never arose. Remembering his request, I reached out to him on LinkedIn. From there, I connected him and his team with Alex, our Ugandan coordinator.
On the surface, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity. Our graduates could photograph the activities, learn about the club, and practice telling the stories of the young people and families involved. However, as the date approached, we began learning important details that had not been shared with us.
The chess club operated from a school within one of Kampala’s informal settlements. We were unfamiliar with the location and had not been made aware of the potential security concerns surrounding the area.
We also learned only the day before our visit that this person who had arranged the opportunity would not be there to meet our team. Then we discovered that the participants were very young children, something we had not anticipated. We asked their mothers to be present so we could address consent and ensure the children were participating appropriately.
These were details we should have known much earlier. But the situation became more serious when one of our trainers arrived on site. As she got off the back of her husband’s motorcycle, someone tried to snatch the phone from her hand. She held on to it, and in the struggle, she fell from the motorcycle. Understandably, she no longer felt safe. Thankfully, she was not physically harmed, except for a few scratches and bruises. No one from their team was there to support our trainers or students until they made their way to the school on their own, which was just down from the main road.
Our team and alumni completed parts of the practical assignment, documenting the chess club and speaking with the mothers and children. However, the overall experience was not what we had planned.
Safety should always come first at Cameras For Girls. In this instance, we fell short.
That is difficult for me to admit, but it is important that I do.
Taking Responsibility Instead of Making Excuses
It would be easy to point to the information our partner did not share, the unexpected change in location, or the attempted theft as circumstances beyond our control. And while some of those things were beyond our control, our preparation was not.
We should have known more about the location before sending our students and trainers there. We should have confirmed who would be present, understood the participants' ages, and assessed the environment where the practical assignment would take place. We did not do enough of that.
As a founder and Executive Director, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about how we build an organization that can operate sustainably, with strong local leadership and the infrastructure to support our students.
Our local team has taken on increasing responsibility for training, coordination, mentorship, and program delivery, which is exactly what we want. But with that responsibility must come the systems that allow them to make informed decisions and protect themselves and our students. We cannot eliminate every risk. And we certainly cannot predict that someone will attempt to steal a phone. But we can do a better job of understanding where we are sending our students and what they might encounter when they arrive.
What Came Out of Our Team Debrief
The following Friday, our team came together to discuss what had happened. I wanted us to have an honest conversation about the experience, particularly what we could have done differently and how we could prevent a similar situation in the future.
One of the most important suggestions came directly from our local team. Going forward, before committing to a new NGO partner for practical training, a member of our team will visit the site. This will allow us to see the program in progress, understand the location, speak with the people running it, and assess whether it is appropriate for our students.
We also need to work with partners who understand what is at stake when we bring young women into their communities for field training. That includes being clear about who will be present, what our students will be photographing, whether children are involved, what consent procedures are needed, and whether there are any concerns we should be aware of beforehand. We have done this with previous partners, but this time we fell short.
Most importantly, our team must feel comfortable raising concerns and deciding not to proceed if the circumstances are not right. Thankfully, when they saw the local youth outside the school become very rowdy, the team decided to cut the session short and were escorted by two guards from the school to the main road, where they could get transportation home.
These may seem like straightforward measures, and they are. But sometimes it takes a difficult experience to show us where an important step is missing from our process.
Our debrief also reminded me why investing in our local team is so important. The people delivering our programs need to have a voice in how those programs are planned, evaluated, and improved. They are the ones on the ground. Their experiences and recommendations must help shape our decisions.
An Important Lesson About Working in Communities
Another lesson came out of this experience, particularly for our alumni.
As photographers, journalists, and storytellers, our graduates will sometimes find themselves working in unfamiliar or challenging environments. They may be asked to document stories in communities they have never visited, speak with people whose experiences differ greatly from their own, or navigate situations that require extra sensitivity and care.
We cannot teach them to avoid every difficult environment. That would not prepare them for the realities of working in media. But we can teach them how to approach unfamiliar places responsibly, understand their surroundings, respect the people they meet, assess their own safety, and recognize when a situation is no longer appropriate. That is an important professional skill.
I also want to be clear that the circumstances of a community should never define the people who live there. Families living in informal settlements deserve the same dignity, care, and respect as anyone else. The challenge was not the community itself. It was that we had not adequately prepared our students and trainers for the environment in which they would be working.
This is a teaching moment, though it is certainly not one I would ever intentionally create. Our graduates need practical experience, but that experience must be supported by responsible planning.
We are also arranging another practical assignment with the women's weaving organization we originally hoped to work with. Our alumni need these opportunities to build skills, strengthen portfolios, and gain experience that will help them secure paid assignments.
One difficult experience should not mean the learning stops. It should mean we approach the next opportunity with better preparation.
Why Transparency Must Go Hand in Hand With Impact and Funding
I have been thinking a great deal about what transparency really means in the nonprofit sector. We publish annual reports, share our financial information, celebrate our graduates, and tell our donors and funders about the impact their support makes possible.
And we should.
But what happens when a program doesn't unfold the way we hoped?
Do we leave that part out?
Do we share photographs from the workshop and celebrate that the training took place, without mentioning the challenges behind the scenes?
If we do that, are we really being transparent? I don't believe we are.
Our donors and funders trust Cameras For Girls with their support. They expect us to deliver meaningful programs, create opportunities for young African women, and use our resources responsibly.
That trust also comes with an obligation to be honest about our challenges.
Being transparent does not mean sharing every internal conversation or putting people's personal experiences on public display. It means acknowledging when something has gone wrong, taking responsibility where we need to, and explaining how we are improving. It also means helping donors understand that impact requires more than cameras, workshops, and mentorship.
It requires local coordination, infrastructure, appropriate safeguards, planning, training, and the ability to respond when unexpected circumstances arise. These are not always the parts of nonprofit work that attract funding. They may not produce a compelling photograph or a student success story, but they are essential to making those outcomes possible.
If we want sustainable impact, we also have to invest in the systems that make our work safe, responsible, and accountable.
Building Trust Means Being Honest About the Difficult Parts
I wish our three-day alumni training had gone exactly as planned. I wish our original partner had been available, that we had known more about the replacement location, and that our trainer had not experienced something that made her feel unsafe. But wishing things had gone differently does not change what happened. What matters now is what we do with what we have learned.
I am proud of our Uganda team for being willing to discuss the experience openly and identify what we need to improve. We will carry those lessons into how we select partners, prepare for field assignments, and support our students and trainers.
I also know that this will not be the last challenge we face as Cameras For Girls continues to grow. Nonprofit work is complicated, especially when you are working across countries, cultures, organizations, and communities with different needs and circumstances.
We will continue making decisions, adapting, and learning along the way. I do not want Cameras For Girls to become an organization that only talks about the good things.
Our successes matter, and I will always celebrate them. But I believe our donors, funders, partners, and students deserve to know that we take the difficult parts of this work just as seriously. We cannot promise that nothing will ever go wrong.
What we can promise is that when things do go wrong, we will listen, take responsibility, learn, and make the changes needed to do better.
Because trust is not built by pretending everything is perfect. It is built by showing that our values still guide us when things don't go according to plan.