Last week, I had the pleasure of teaching photography to 10 females from Khwela Womxn in South Africa. Khwela Womxn is an organization located in Cape Town, South Africa, similar to Cameras For Girls. Our shared goals are to empower females to reach higher and accomplish more through diversified training programs.

As a part of our initiative to keep the girls and young women in our Cameras For Girls program moving forward, I am interviewing photographers, photojournalists and documentary photographers worldwide to gather different perspectives on what motivates them in their work. Since Cameras For Girls started our journey in Uganda, I thought I would start the series off by interviewing notable Ugandan photojournalist Esther Ruth Mbabazi

Samantha Byakutaga is a 25-year-old young woman who graduated from Uganda Christian University with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications Degree and a major in journalism. She was working on a contract position at Success Africa as a media and communications fellow. She has recently gotten a full-time position with the same company, which is outstanding as the country has suffered a tremendous blow from COVID, with many of the citizens suffering from unemployment.

Sharon Countrygal Kyatusiimire was in the first training we held in Kampala in August 2018 and has collaborated with a few of the other students to design an organization called the She Voice. Their goal is to give females across Africa a voice to tell the stories otherwise not heard. Not only will it give her a voice in the heavily male-dominated journalism industry, but it will do the same for other girls as well.

When I set out to change the lives of females in my home country, Uganda, using the power of photography, I never envisioned that we would be here three years later, after many setbacks. Being a solo founder and running this day-in and day-out gets lonely and sometimes overwhelming. But knowing the lives, I can impact in the developing world makes me work harder each day. What does it mean for a small organization to hit official status? Mainly that we can now issue tax receipts for donations.

d don't know how to use one. We were fortunate to be working with Youth Arts Movement Uganda out of their facility in Kampala. 

Joanita Nakatte is proof positive that our Cameras For Girls training works. Joanita attended our first Cameras For Girls 3-day workshop in Kampala in August 2018. She and 14 other young females gathered together in a rudimentary classroom to partake in our photography workshop, targeted towards females endeavouring to become journalists.

Empowering females is crucial in a world that stills struggles with gender inequality. Empowering our female students with photography and business skills enables her to fight for her rights for a job and be paid as equally as possible to her male counterpart. The pay gap amounts to a 17% difference, which tells us there is still much work to do in this area.