Exercise 2b: facilitator interacting with a STAR group

The second set of pictures was not a very successful one, in terms of producing nice shots, and probably it was not also strictly as per the briefing (i.e. I did not focus on two people, but on a person and a group).

But for me this exercise was an important opportunity to try to tackle work related pictures through different lenses. I participated to a meeting of a community group, using the “STAR” (Societies Tackling AIDS through Rights) approach. The group discusses and takes action on HIV/AIDS and other related issues. The tools used are the - quite standard - “participatory rural appraisal” (PRA) tools.

I have tons of quite conventional pictures of people engaging in PRA, from all over the places,. Picture of people filling in flipcharts or mapping issues on the ground. It is quite a mechanical exercise to me, which I do out of habit.

The exercise helped me to look at the action from a different angle, and to thake pictures not on "autopilot". I chose to focus on the relationship amongst the group facilitator and the group, and the challenges were:

• to capture the “relationship” dimension of our work, looking at how people involved in the exercises relate and interact. It might sound strange, but the relationship dimension - which should be key- is too often forgotten by us, NGO workers, as we engage in mechanical applications of “tools”.
• To shoot a relatively clean and picture amongst the chaos of these processes (plenty of people, interacting dynamically, lots of clutter around…)
• To make the picture interesting even when it involved simply a person going around with flipcharts and providing quick hints to people. This is a challenge that is important to take: much development work revolves around people sitting together and discussing. How can I show that this bonding can really change their attitudes, perceptions, position in society and, ultimately, life?

I do not think I had made any exciting shots, but I felt that the exercise was really useful to push me to transform routine pictures in something which can carry more complex meanings.