Wow, its hard to believe that next month I will be traveling across the world to Kenya! I started Photographers Vision for Africa with a few others in March and we are almost ready for our journey.
Our small group started as an inspiration from the non-profit Friends Vision, that helps orphaned & neglected children in Kenya, Africa. Read all of the details & make a donation at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/248907?a=1589600.
We have many goals for our trip, and I really hope we have enough time out there to accomplish them all! Here are some of our plans for Kenya, Africa: 1) Providing fun makeovers and portrait sessions to sexually abused girls of the Safeway House to help increase their self-esteem and show them how beautiful they are. 2) Visiting a local orphanage where the kids are nothing but a number and often locked up in solitaire with little to eat and no one to love them. We plan on documenting their living conditions with photo & video to help spread the word of their dire need for basic fundamentals such as food, clothing, and love. We’re hoping our photos will inspire people to “adopt” a child so they are able to at least go to a boarding school and get an education. 3) We will be donating cameras to the older children and teaching them the basics of photography. Photography will provide them with a valuable skill, a creative outlet, and a way to share their lives with their sponsors and supporters around the world. 4) We will be donating used laptops to the Safeway House, the orphanage, and if have enough, also to an HIV Aids Clinic. We will be teaching the older kids and staff how to use the computers and how to download their pictures and share their images with the world. 5) We also will be installing useful software onto the laptops such as Rosetta stone and other learning tools to help the children learn English and other basic lessons. 6) We will be printing up some of the pictures we take along our journey and that the children have taken themselves to create a wall collage of photos to help decorate the drab orphanage walls. This will be a fun project we can work on together with the children. 7) Upon our returns we plan on hosting an art exhibition to display our fine art images and further spread the word about our project. Our end goal is to not only help improve these children’s lives with photography, but to help more of them find sponsors for school, and to inspire other photographers to continue this project on an annual basis.
We have been hosting small fundraisers to get the word out about what we’re doing, especially to other photographers. Below are pictures from our last one held in my backyard a couple of months ago. Thank you to Molly Seeling of Cedar House Photography, for taking these pictures, and also for joining us on this trip. This Sunday October 21st I will be hosting a FUNdraiser at my home studio once again. This time its also my birthday, so we’re doing a bake sale & bar for donations. There will also be lots of fun birthday partying going on, and asking all my friends and family to refrain from purchasing me any gifts this year and to instead either donate to our cause or donate girl’s dresses for our makeovers at the girls’ home we will be visiting. If you want to come just shoot me an email at nicolenicholsphoto at gmail.com for all the details.
[mbspremium slideshow=1]
If you’re curious to know how photography can make a difference in the world, please take a minute to read more about our goals & all of the details at http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/248907?a=1589600. If you are able to make a donation as well, it would be greatly appreciated. None of us are getting paid to do this or receiving any grants or loans, as of now this is a fully self-sponsored trip. We are all taking lots of time off from our jobs to do this, and all of the funds collected will help make this all possible. I am also offering some great incentives in exchange for donations such as fine art prints from our trip and even portrait sessions. So if you have been waiting to do that professional photo shoot, please purchase one now & all proceeds will go to a good cause. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this & for all your support. =)