charity

The United Nations has said that educating women is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty around the globe. Having taken that statement to heart, The Girl Power Project -- a collaboration between by The Collective Heart and Unstoppable Foundation -- is committed to empowering the girls of Uganda and putting a stop to generations of poverty, disease, abuse and illiteracy.

In order to achieve this goal they must spread the word, and photographer Margot Duane believes she can help.

Sara Hansson and Jens Lennartsson feel that the media at large has painted an unfair and inaccurate picture of children in developing countries. And so, they've founded an organization that seeks to undo this wrong in a unique way.

The organization is called EYE AM, and through it, Hansson and Lennartsson hope to reach out to the children in these countries, teach them the basics of photography, and then help them to tell their own stories.

Over the course of his 40+ year business career, Brian Hampton took the lead as CEO of 5 successful companies. Through it all, however, he had a passion for photography that never waned. And so, now that he's retired from the business world and has time to spend pursuing that passion, he's turned what was once a hobby into an incredibly successful wildlife photography career -- as long as you don't equate making money with success.

When photojournalists capture images of human suffering around the world, they're often accused of being coldhearted and of exploiting those in need. The media organizations and charities that send them out draw similar criticism, but they argue that these negative stories help bring attention to issues that would otherwise be ignored and that they help encourage charitable giving.

Due to the sensitive nature of these types of stories, organizations generally tread very carefully when putting out requests for photos and footage. However, that's not always the case.

Well, that was abrupt. On Tuesday, we wrote that the Nikon D4 that Usain Bolt had famously used after winning an Olympic gold medal was up for auction on eBay, with the proceeds going toward educational and cancer research charities. After the story was reported worldwide, the high bid quickly rose until it hit $11,600 today. Then suddenly, it was gone.

Usain Bolt ran beyond the boundaries of sports and made headlines in the world of photography earlier this year at the London Olympics. After winning yet another gold in his 200m race, he ran over to Scandinavian newspaper photographer Jimmy Wixtröm, grabbed his Nikon D4, and began shooting some awesome photographs of what he was experiencing.

Wixtröm just sent us an email with some neat news: the famous D4 is now being auctioned with the proceeds going to charity.

Photography, at its essence, tells a story. And even though the majority of the "photography" we see today tells the story of how we went to Pinkberry yesterday or what city we happen to be in at the moment, powerful photography is still very much alive because there are plenty of powerful stories. 100Cameras, like so many charities, relies on photography to tell the powerful stories of underprivileged children; only, unlike the rest, they don't put the children in front of the camera, they put them behind it.

The concept is simple. 100cameras staff members travel to countries armed with cameras. They partner with a local organization serving children in the community. For the next few weeks, they teach the children how to take photographs. Then they set those children free to capture their world and post the photos online.

For the kids, sharing their life with the rest of the world is a reward in itself, but 100cameras goes one step further. The photographs are available for sale, and 100% of the profits go back to the children's organizations.

Photography enthusiast and retired physicist Milo Shott of Oxford, England has found a way use his love for cameras to raise boatloads of money for the poverty-fighting charity Oxfam: camera repair. 11 years ago, Shott noticed some workers at an Oxfam store throwing out an old piece of camera equipment. After saving it from the trash, he fixed it up and helped the store sell it for £270.

Forget those fake plastic (but wildly popular) mugs that look like Canon lenses, there's a one of a kind custom lens cup made from a real $1,300 Canon 300mm f/4 L lens being auctioned on eBay. Kai over at DigitalRev had an accident while shooting a video about the lens and, instead of tossing it out, they decided to convert it into a cup and auction it off for charity (all proceeds will go to help victims of the recent Australian flooding).

Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by its creator.

The past two days have been filled with increasingly grim news following the catastrophic magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti. If you had a chance to catch MSNBC's coverage of the aftermath in the video above, there are some very powerful images.