Pictures of Hope: Using Photography to Give Hope to Children in Need

picturesofhope

Photography can be a wonderful source of growth, healing and hope. Programs like this one at the VA in Palo Alto have helped PTSD-afflicted veterans cope with their condition, while the EYE AM program was trying to have children tell their stories on an international level.

EYE AM never raised the funding it needed, but another program devoted to helping children through photography has been going strong for a couple of years now, making a difference for children in need all over the United States. This program is called Pictures of Hope.

Pictures of Hope was put together by award-winning photojournalist Linda Solomon, whose goal was to create a program that helped children express their hopes and dreams through photographs.

Each year around this time, Solomon travels to shelters all around the US, gives a short photo tutorial, and then surprises the children there with their own digital camera and photo assignment: go photograph your “hopes and dreams.”

She recently paid a visit to the children at the City Rescue Mission in Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma’s News 9 had a chance to catch up with her:

The program is sponsored by Chevrolet, and with their help, Solomon is embarking on a twelve-city tour this year. The same lesson, surprise and assignment are given at every location, and the resulting photos and written hopes are then turned into greeting cards that will be available for purchase on Thanksgiving. All of the proceeds from the sales will go to support the shelters at which they were taken.

“Their hopes and dreams captured in quiet moments tell a story that few adults can imagine,” says Linda on her website. “When you show children that you care about what they wish for in life, perhaps a child who never felt he or she had self worth, now will.”

To learn more about the program, watch some of the other national news coverage Pictures of Hope has gotten, or buy a set of last year’s greeting cards from any of the ten cities Solomon visited in 2012, head over to the Pictures of Hope webpage by clicking here.

(via News 9)

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