Talking through photos: the photovoice technique

During the mentors’ training, one of the active and participatory methodologies we used with mentors is the photovoice.
But, what does photovoice mean?
Photovoice combines photography with autobiographical narration.
That’s why it is an important tool to help young mentors reflecting on their own personal and professional trajectories and paths, focusing in particular on the critical incidents, the turning points and the most effective strategies to reach professional and/or educational goals.
By narrating themselves using photographs and words, the mentors can reflect on their own experiences.
This is the first step to gain those knowledge, skills and competences required to support young Roma identifying personal resources and networks, important ingredients to reach their educational or professional aims.

Here below you can find a gallery with photos and narrations taken by Italian and Spanish mentors.
In Italy the photovoice workshop has been led by the photographer Sabrina Casiroli, while in Spain it has been led by the photographer Esther Correa Pérez.

“To see beyond. Overcoming one’s own obstacles and not closing oneself. If you are closed, no one can hurt you, but when the first hole has been done, you start seeing some light”. (Italian mentors’ training

“Collaboration, effort. What strikes is the size of the load. What I did in my life was always taking too many tasks, until I was dead tired. But getting help is always a solution.” (Italian mentors’ training)

“Visual poetry: the door is closed, but on it is written “free passage”. Opening to others also means taking time to know them, not being in a hurry to open wide, but giving space and trust within our own self-protection needs. Searching for poetry and letting it circulate.” (Italian mentors’ training)

“The coloured lights: Meeting diversity that mixes and makes the growing path beautiful. There is also the mirroring and creating a continuous game of reflection between parts of oneself and others.” (Italian mentors’ training)

“Dandelion: I saw a double message in it: the fragility and blossoming. In a period of my life I felt carried by the wind. I followed people, was only a child of 19 and didn’t know the world. This allowed me to learn many things, my fragility became my capacity to adapt to many situations.” (Italian mentors’ training)

Even buildings tell stories, who can listen to them? (Spanish mentors’ training)

Speak out. (Spanish mentors’ training)

The shape of personal effort is not an individual success. (Spanish mentors’ training)

“I know what a want to become” (Spanish mentors’ training)

A place from which we can start… (Spanish mentors’ training)

“Me, the student” and the massive amount of information one has to memorise. (Bulgarian mentors’ training)

“Me, the student” and the exams-related stress. (Bulgarian mentors’ training)

“This is the Panduri building of the Faculty. I like the building because it suggests the moment I learnt to see things differently”. (Romanian mentors’ training)

“The road to success. The road to school and the bus station where I spent so much time waiting”. (Romanian mentors’ training)

“This is a view from Pantelimon, from my balcony. I looked at this view for so many times. It’s a view to Florilor Park where I grew up, where I fell down from the playground slide. This is the complete image with of my beginnings: the school, the football field, the high blocks of flats behind which I thought there was the sea”. (Romanian mentors’ training)