Amina Mohamed, founded Cameras For Girls to change the lives of girls and women in Uganda, through the power of photography.
Any developing nation striving towards improving the lives of its female population would benefit significantly from adopting appropriate means that ensure female empowerment and skills development.
Cameras For Girls is not just about photography – it’s about empowering women through their passion for storytelling and allowing them to share their stories with the world.
I am proud to introduce Ugandan photographer Miriam Namutembi. In our series of interviews with notable and professional jo
Joyce Kimani is a young and talented Kenyan young woman, who attended my last Cameras For Girls training in Kampala, Uganda. She was in Uganda to earn her degree in Mass Communications and Journalism from Makerere University. This would be our last training in June 2019 before COVID hit and everything was stopped.
Since its inception in August 2017, Cameras For Girls has diligently taught photography and business skills to marginalized females endeavouring to become journalists in Africa. However, we realized we needed to pivot over the last 20 months under COVID. Thus, we built a robust video library, so our students could continue developing their photography and business skills instead of having the in-person training we could not deliver.
Brandy Valentine Azeirwe attended the Cameras For Girls’ second photography training, conducted in Uganda in June 2019. At the time, she was a recent graduate from the Bachelors’ degree program in Mass Communications and Journalism from Uganda Christian University in Kampala
I met Patience Natukunda in June 2019 when I embarked on my second photography training in Kampala, Uganda. Through our charity Cameras For Girls, we embark on teaching photography to females endeavouring to become journalists.
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.
I took to sharing our charitable work online through various channels and also wanted to speak with my donors through pre-arranged online coffee dates (thank you Zoom) about what was working and what was not. I wanted to ensure that the communication we were putting out was clear and reached the hearts of our donors. Authentically connecting with my donors has meant everything to me. The fact that these people who have their own daily struggles take the time to talk and share with me is incredible.
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.
One of the main reasons we started Cameras For Girls is to help girls in developing countries move past poverty, gender inequality, oppression, suppression, and sexual exploitation.
I survive these days, remembering my first training that took place in August 2018. I first came up with the idea back in August 2017. At that time, I left a 15-year career in film and television and had embarked on a new career as a mortgage broker. I was a very successful mortgage broker, and I had even won a few awards, but I was not satisfied as the call of photography kept beckoning to me. However, I was not prepared to leave my well-paying job to just take photos for a living. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that, and in fact, I do that with my other business Amina Mohamed Photography. On a personal level, leaving a well-paying job had to mean I was changing lives through the power of photography.
Amina Mohamed, founded Cameras For Girls to change the lives of girls and women in Uganda, through the power of photography.