Since 2016, Lens on Life has trained more than 1,000 young people in photography and digital literacy, running year-round in the South Bronx, Zaatari camp in Jordan, Arbat camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, Yaoundé, Goma and Bujumbura. The classes are intensive and built on mentorship: small groups, months of real assignments and critique, a camera in hand from the first session. Much of the teaching comes from our own graduates, who return as assistants and instructors and now lead classes at the sites where they were once students. Peers teaching peers is what makes the work hold.
Our students have come through war, displacement, incarceration, poverty, and homelessness. They finish high school, attend college, and build careers as photographers and photojournalists, finding a voice and changing the narrative of communities that have long been photographed by outsiders. Graduates have published in The New York Times and The Washington Post, photographed the UN General Assembly, and sold prints in New York galleries.
Please read our annual reports below to learn more about our ongoing impact year after year.
