the idea

The information coming out of the media about Africa in total or especially Rwanda is pretty much concentrating on crisis and the problems. Most of the stories are told by foreign journalists. But what do the people of Rwanda think about their country? How do they see it? What are the stories they wanna tell the world?

After the Iran elections we could see in a massive speed all the information going through the internet and giving us a ground level view inside a country which was stilized to the root of all evil in the last years. Even when this might not be possible in Rwanda to this extend, everyone has a cellphone and most of them have one with a camera in it.

A picture is about creating a memory, capturing a moment. The technical device you use is in the first moment not important for this. It could be your cellphone, a old film camera or a fancy DSLR. At the end it depends on you, what comes out of it and how good you captured what you saw.

The idea behind a photography/multimedia workshop is to provide basic skills in creating images, how to tell stories with pictures and also to give the knowlage about where to find information, free programs and other things you need to start creating something out of the images and put it on the internet, where the world could see them.

The digital age gives the big opportunity to see the life though the eyes of everyone and social networks are a wonderful point to start with that. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs are giving everyone the chance to express themselves for free and telling her/his story. Why not use this to create more understanding from the outside world for a country like Rwanda?