A picture speaks a thousand words: digital storytelling in Ethiopia

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, recently said: ‘When you give people a voice, you give them power – and that puts the world in a different place.’

For many of us, the smartphone is a superpower. At the touch of a button, we can capture our frothy morning latte, our broken umbrella, train problems on the way to work. Those images can then be shared with the world.

Many others don’t have that privilege. Lack of resources and training means that the personal stories of those living in remote communities – including those I am working with in Ethiopia – often go unheard. But what might we learn from these communities if they were given cameras to tell their stories?

Through their eyes

I recently started working with PhotoVoice, an organisation that provides photography training to remote communities to help them communicate and advocate for social change.

We began by giving cameras to 12 men and women in Adegalchet, Southern Ethiopia, and asked them to show us, through their images, how their daily lives are affected by flooding, drought and other factors linked to climate change. The results will guide our work on BRACED, a UK Aid-funded programme which aims to help vulnerable communities overcome the negative impact of climate change.

For some, photos of their cows, slowly starving in the hot, arid desert represented the most significant obstacle. For others, the local water hole - a stagnant pool where women and children drink the same dirty water as their livestock – was the image they felt best represented their daily lives.

Despite the lush grasslands of the rift valley, the orange-red hews of the stone wall terraces and the fresh mango groves just an hour’s drive away, this is Ethiopia as they see it.

Stories of change

These initial images brought up a wide range of issues I hadn’t anticipated.

We met Godana Sara Boru, 28, a mother to four young children, at the local water pump. She told us that this was the spot where she had helped to deliver the baby of a woman who had gone into labour prematurely, after hours of waiting in the hot sun to fill her jerry can.

In Adegalchat, women are forced to make the journey to collect water from a pond four hours’ walk away. During the rainy season, the water is often unclean, infested with cholera and other water-borne diseases. During the dry season, communities are forced to share what little water there is, meaning that livestock often do not have ample water.

 Tume Jarso Dida, 26, told us:

 "If there is not enough water, I will be forced to go back and search for more – sometimes in the middle of the night.”

Jaro Barako Kanchora is a local farmer who used his camera to show us the importance of the ‘Gada’ system to the community: a traditional way to forecast the weather. In Jaro’s community, they observe the behaviour of their livestock and even read the animals’ intestines to predict the changing weather patterns:

“Last summer, we watched and could see that our livestock were eating and drinking well, but not gaining any weight. The bulls weren’t mating. We discussed why and decided to read the animals’ intestines to forecast the weather. We were right – foot and mouth disease was affecting our livestock. It can be said that the animal will begin to change its behaviour when the weather comes – the information is in its stomach.”

The images that this community chose to take offer us a window into their world. We can see how they live now and what they need for the situation to change.

Looking ahead

In 6 months, a year, 2 years, I hope that the content of the photographs will change to show us how the lives of those in Adelgalchat have improved. 

Christian Aid will continue to work in Adelgalchat to ensure that communities are prepared to deal with these challenges, providing knowledge, training and ongoing support. If these farmers are better equipped to deal with the effects of climate change, I hope that we won’t see so many livestock lost to starvation and dehydration, or families burying their children as a result of entirely preventable diseases.

I look forward to returning to Adegalchet in early 2016 to see what - if anything - has changed. In the meantime, we will continue to work with this community to give them that visual voice. Only then can we determine how best to support these and many other communities in Ethiopia.

Get in touch

We’d love to know what you think. For more information, please contact Nicola Kelly via Twitter @mllenicolakelly or email nkelly@christian-aid.org. To see a selection of images, take a look at our Medium post. To learn more about the BRACED Ethiopia programme, visit the BRACED website or reach us via Twitter @bebraced.