Learning Life’s Citizen Diplomacy Initiative (CDI) engages lower-income American families, starting in Washington D.C., in live internet dialogues and project collaborations with lower-income families in other nations to nurture more caring and capable global citizens. Our photovoice project is the first of a series of international CDI projects. The electronic photo album that results from this first project will form part of a growing portfolio of products – photo albums, art works, videos, research reports, published articles, etc. — documenting our families’ local community engagement, international collaborations, and developing global knowledge, skills, attitudes and connections.
Project Description
This first project’s outcome will be an album of selected photos from participating families in the USA, Senegal and Jordan. To create the album, the families first go into their community to take some initial photos in answer to the project question “what is the nature of your community?” Learning Life then provides the families with some training in photography, and the families take a second round of community photos. The two rounds of photos before and after training allow us to to assess if we see any improvements in the quality of each family’s photos resulting from the training.
The photos are posted to Learning Life’s CDI Facebook group for all our families and volunteers to see and comment on wherever they are in the world. Once all the families have taken their community photos, each family votes on the photos they like best. Their votes help determine which photos end up in the final electronic album. That album compares the families’ best photos, organized by topic, taken from their different standpoints in the world. We anticipate that this initial photovoice project will identify community issues to explore and address in subsequent CDI project collaborations.
As CDI expands, and more families in more communities across the world complete their own photovoice projects, we will gather selected photos in answer to the same community question above in an album at our CDI Facebook group. That album will give a view of a growing number of communities worldwide from the vantage points of our CDI participants.
Project Goals
Improve project participants’ photography skills.
Deepen participants’ knowledge of and interest in learning about the world.
Identify community issues for CDI participants to explore in follow-up projects.
Learn more
Interested in learning more, or getting involved in CDI as a family or volunteer? Contact us at email@learninglife.info.
International Photovoice Project Begins
On Sunday, September 25, 2016, in Learning Life’s fifth live, international, family-to-family dialogue, two American families in Washington D.C. and members of four Salvadoran families in Puerto de la Libertad, El Salvador began discussing their first collaboration: an ambitious international photo project.
Following on two prior dialogues dedicated to introducing the Salvadoran and American families to each other, the conversation in this third dialogue between these families turned to the nature of community and community change, and how to answer the question “what is the past, present and future of your community?” in photos.
“Community” is a commonly used, widely cherished, but seldom defined term. If community is defined in terms of shared interests, activities and/or goals, then a group of friends, a business association, or a sports team can be seen as communities. As Kaniya, an 11-year old American participant in the international dialogue noted, she feels that her school basketball team (on which she is one of the star players) is a kind of community because they work together toward shared goals.
But in the most common parlance, community is place-based, and local, like a town or neighborhood. It is also something to which people often feel emotionally attached, especially as they develop meaningful experiences and memories of sites, sounds, textures, tastes and/or smells involving certain people, places and activities. And, as Danjha, one of our Spanish interpreters noted during the dialogue, that attachment can inspire a sense of goodwill and reciprocity between community members. Communities as localities in which people live, work and play thus have tactile and emotional components.
They also change to varying extents with time. In a modern world characterized by rapid social change, communities can change visibly in the span of just a few years as new homes, offices, factories, stores and other landmarks go up, old ones come down, and different people move in and out. That change — the past, present and future of communities — can be captured in photos of people, events, objects, buildings and larger scenes. For example, as Terri, one of the mothers participating in our live dialogue noted, a statue of a slave fighting for freedom in her neighborhood can say much about the past of her community, just as a photo of a current neighborhood leader next door to her can speak to the present civic strength of her community.
Each person can bring a different perspective to community change by photographing different things, capturing those things in varied manners (playing with different angles, times, distances, lighting, color, props, etc.), and labeling or describing photos in diverse ways. “Photovoice” projects recognize that photographs are selective representations of reality, and that people can exercise their voice through the photos they take and how they take and describe them. Photovoice also recognizes that different people can look at the same photo in very different ways.
It is with these and other thoughts in mind that we embark on a photovoice project over the next several months that will culminate in an international photo album composed of photos our participating families take in five communities across the world — in the United States, El Salvador, Senegal, Jordan and the Philippines. Learning Life plans to publish the photo album online, and have willing family participants co-present the album in local and international public presentations. This album will be the tangible outcome of the first of many planned international projects we hope our Citizen Diplomacy Initiative families will engage in to develop their skills, knowledge, interest, perspectives and social connections as rising citizens of the world.
Special thanks to Learning Life volunteers, Karen Tituana and Danjha León for their assistance with language interpreting, and Cintia and Antonio with CRIPDES, our nonprofit partner in El Salvador, for their help in facilitating the dialogue.
Seeking Metro DC Grad Students to Research & Lead International Dialogues
About Learning Life & Its Citizen Diplomacy Initiative
Learning Life is an educational nonprofit in Washington D.C. that seeks to spread learning in everyday life beyond school walls. Learning Life has recently begun a Citizen Diplomacy Initiative that engages lower-income American families, starting in Washington D.C., in live internet video dialogues or “virtual exchanges” and project collaborations with lower-income families in other nations to foster global citizenship and family and youth development.
About the Opportunity
Learning Life seeks metro D.C. graduate students in Master’s or Ph.D. programs to serve as volunteer organizers for our live international dialogues. Organizers work with specific families in D.C. and abroad to:
Schedule family-to-family dialogues and reserve space for the dialogues.
Schedule Learning Life language interpreters to translate the families’ words during the dialogues.
Remind the families and arrange their transportation to the dialogues as needed.
Moderate the dialogues to ensure families are actively participating and progressing.
Conduct periodic surveys of the families and enter the resulting survey data in our databases.
Communicate with our foreign partners via Skype to arrange the dialogues and gather their data.
Contribute to Learning Life research reports based on the accumulated data.
Time commitment is about 5-8 hours/week for at least one year. Specific benefits include:
Working directly with Learning Life’s founder, Dr. Paul Lachelier, a sociologist with twenty years of experience as a teacher and community organizer
Experience with research, and the opportunity to co-author research reports
A work reference and written recommendation, contingent on performance
Participating in and shaping live, international, family-to-family dialogues
Working with lower-income families and children ages 10-18 to help them learn and thrive
Nurturing international understanding and global citizenship
Experience managing volunteers
The Graduate Students We Seek
This opportunity is ideal for graduate students seeking tangible experience in international (a) research, and (b) peace and development work using the internet. Applicants should be outgoing, cultural sensitive, organized, detail-oriented, hard-working and punctual. Prior experience in international affairs, community organizing or social justice work is preferred, but not required. Fluency in Spanish, French, Arabic or Filipino is a plus, as is having lived in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and/or Washington D.C.’s Wards 7 or 8 (D.C. east of the Anacostia River).
How to Apply
Email Dr. Lachelier directly at paul@learninglife.info with your resume and times you are available in the next seven days for a phone interview.
Seeking International Dialogue Organizers in Amman, Jordan
Interested in education, children and families, and/or international affairs?
Want to volunteer for an innovative American organization promoting international peace and collaboration?
About Learning Life & Its Citizen Diplomacy Initiative
Based in metro Washington D.C., Learning Life is an educational nonprofit devoted to spreading learning beyond school walls. Learning Life’s Citizen Diplomacy Initiative engages lower-income American families, starting in the U.S. capital of Washington D.C., with families in other nations via “virtual exchange” (i.e., live, video-dialogue via the internet) and project collaborations in order to foster peace and family and youth development.
About the Volunteer Opportunity
Learning Life is now recruiting volunteers (university students, teachers, parents, community leaders) in Amman, Jordan to serve as dialogue organizers in their community. Dialogue organizers help find families, dialogue moderators, language interpreters (click here for more about each of these roles), and safe, quiet locations with high-speed (if families don’t have internet in their own home) in their communities to make the dialogues possible. If interested, dialogue organizers can also serve as discussion moderators or language interpreters during the live family-to-family dialogues, and collect survey data from the families during the dialogues.
Dialogue organizers work remotely, in their own countries, and meet as needed via Skype with Learning Life founder, Paul Lachelier, Ph.D. and/or other Learning Life staff in the United States, and otherwise communicate via email. Work hours will vary from week to week, but should average to about 3-5 hours/week.
Our dialogue organizers are not paid, but the work offers substantive, resume-building experience helping to build a new and innovative international exchange program. This volunteer opportunity is ideal for individuals interested in English language, education/teaching, youth and families, and/or international affairs, but others are welcome to apply.
No prior experience necessary, though dialogue organizers must enjoy working with people, be responsible, responsive, hard working, have routine and reliable internet access, and be strong in spoken and written English. It’s also a plus if you have social ties to many families in your community.
How to Apply
Email your resume in English to paul@learninglife.info. Dr. Lachelier will respond personally as soon as possible to schedule an interview with you via Skype, or another free internet phone service.
This first project’s outcome will be an album of selected photos from participating families in the USA, Senegal and Jordan. To create the album, the families first go into their community to take some initial photos in answer to the project question “what is the nature of your community?” Learning Life then provides the families with some training in photography, and the families take a second round of community photos. The two rounds of photos before and after training allow us to to assess if we see any improvements in the quality of each family’s photos resulting from the training.
