Giving Women a Voice Through Photography: Meet Cameras for Girls

5:52PM Apr 18, 2023

Speakers:

Julie Confer

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Amina Mohamed

Keywords:

girls

uganda

people

journalists

community

storytelling

camera

photography

amina

day

built

empowering

learning

mentor

photos

world

photograph

teach

nonprofit

photographers

Support for this show is brought to you by our friends at Bloomerang. Bloomerang offers donor management and online fundraising software that helps small to medium nonprofits like First Tee of greater Akron, and nonprofit empowering kids and teens through the game of golf.

After just one year with Bloomerang, they doubled their unique donors, improved donor stewardship and raise more funds to listen to the full interview of First Tee of greater Akron visit bloomerang.com/we are for good, or click the link in our show notes. Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

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So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Becky, oh my gosh, I

love days when we bring like people with incredible missions in from our community organically. It's one of those days

me too. And there's just people that you meet in this journey that when you talk to them, you know, you follow them online, you see what they're up to. But then you get to have a conversation and you're like, wow, dang, we are so value aligned. How did it take 40 years, I'd have to say 40. Now my old age self, to meet this individual in person. And so I'm delighted to introduce you to our friend and our visionary, Amina Mohammed, she is the founder and lead photographer at camera for girls. So Amina came to Canada in 1972, as a refugee from Uganda, she was fleeing during the brutal regime of Idi Amin. And that changed her worldview. I mean, how could it not and really has opened up how she wants to create a different kind of conversation. And she has taken that that passion. You know, she had this incredible career in media where she was kind of in behind the scenes in film and television as a producer. But she just wanted to channel her passion with this, you know, opportunity to serve a country that she not only knew, but that she loved. And she created camera for girls specifically to go and help, you know, young girls have access to not just the skills of photography, but how do you turn that into a business? How do you use it as a journalist so that you can uplift you can storytel and that they can ultimately be change agents telling their own story around. So she has this incredible group of women that I want you to go check out on their website and get to know them. But she's going to tell us a little bit about how her program works, and how she is empowering people on the daily, just like she's doing us over on LinkedIn. So if you're not following her there, check her out. I mean, it is a delight to be with you today. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

I think I'm going to cry. Best introduction ever. Oh my god, thank you so much for this honor. I am a big fan girl. Have you guys, I think what you're doing in the nonprofit space to share stories of impact from others is really powerful. So I'm just honored to be one of those people. Thank you absolutely

one of those people, we feel honored to share space with you today. So I want to give you just a second to catch us up to your story. I mean, it's definitely informed a lot of how you show up and definitely view the world. And so would you take us back to growing up in those some of those transformational experiences that have put you on the path that you're on today?

Yeah, absolutely. So as you said, we came to Canada as refugees. I was three years old. My parents were born in Uganda, my sister was born, I was actually born in England. But after I was born, we came back to Uganda thinking that we would settle for good. And Idi Amin gave us 90 days, all Indians 90 days to get out of the country. And, you know, you come to a new country and you don't know the culture, you're not prepared for the cold. And you you don't know what life is going to be like because you left everything behind. Right? Like everything was left behind. And I really honor my parents for the sacrifices that they made for us because we didn't have money growing up. We didn't have opportunities, but you know, whatever we did have they they struggled they they sacrifice to give us a good life. And I have to tell a funny story. So when we landed the Montreal facility to get processed, that's in Canada. And we were in a refugee camp and they they start processing us once one at a time and it's my dad's turn and he goes up and he ended up border guard system, my dad, so where do you want to go? And my dad's been looking at National Geographic on the plane. And he's like, oh, we'll go to the Northwest Territories. And the guy's like, yeah, it's desolate. It's cold. There's no jobs. My dad flips again, and he's like, oh, we'll go to the Yukon and again Then the guy goes, Yeah, same story, no jobs cold. And, and then my dad says, Okay, well go to New Brunswick and the guy goes, Okay, well, it's really cold there. Do you have a family? My dad's like, yeah, my wife and my two kids over there. And my sister was like a year old. And he's like, Okay, do you have any family in Canada? Good. Yeah, I got a sister in some place called St. Catharines. Food Stamp, that's like, right over the border from Niagara Falls. And so that's where we, we landed, just like that. And, and it was, you know, I grew up knowing that we were the fortunate ones, we had come as refugees. But now we have this land where we can make the lives that we want, even if it struggle you still have, but the one lesson that was imparted into me very early on in life was to give back makes this world a better place for you and others. So I always had that in them, right? It was always like, Oh, who am I going to go volunteer with? Who am I going to help out with? You know, is it the homeless? Is it whatever, so it was always in my heart. And I ended up working in high after high school in the film and television industry completely by accident. But I moved on from getting my foot in the door in catering all the way into wardrobe. My last film was American Psycho. Oh, my god, yeah, casual, and then moving into, it's a piece of garbage. But then moving into producing, right. And it was during my producing years in documentary that I got the opportunity to go back to Uganda for the first time in 2007, I was there to do a documentary about the return of the aliens who are coming back to claim what was lost. And I was expecting to see the same country that we left behind of prosperity. It's called the Pearl of Africa is just gorgeous, no poverty. But what I saw instead shook me to my core, there was immense poverty. But more importantly, it was the plight of women and girls that really kicked me in the pants. I grew up in Canada with all the opportunities and in your youth, you will squander many of those opportunities, guilty. But what I was seeing was, girls were denied an education because their girls, or they were getting married off just after hitting puberty. And by the time they're in their 20s, they have five to six children. They can't feed, clothe or educate in the cycle of poverty just repeats. And it got me angry. So it was there in the back of my head that I wanted to do something. But I was in my 20s. I didn't know know what I was doing. And I was in this great career. Fast forward. I've left film and television by this time, 10 years later, and I literally wake up in the middle of the night in August 2017. And I say to my husband, I'm going back to Uganda to teach photography to girls. And he looked at me it was three o'clock in the morning. And he said, Yeah, okay, and he turned around and went back to sleep not before calling me crazy. And a year later, I was in Uganda doing the first workshop. So yeah, that's the story in a nutshell,

Amina, I mean, to me, you are one of the great heroes of humanity, and the way that you talk about your journey. And thank you for giving us just a brief lens into what it's like to be an immigrant and what it feels like I think about the power that that agent had to just say, this is where you're living and how that changed the trajectory of your entire life. But the fact that you have had gratitude, and philanthropy this need to be generous, this need to give back is just so resonating with me, and I know you know this, but Julie and I were both saying before we started this interview that our passion in life is to empower girls, and to give them the power back to get an education, to rise into being the fullest version of themselves, and to give them control over their own narrative. And you've done this with cameras for girls, and I want you to talk about this incredible mission. So for those listeners who aren't familiar, talk about your Inception story and what the mission looks like today.

So when I actually came up with the idea, and I said, I'm going back to Uganda to teach girls, my first thought was, I'm going to go to the northern part of Uganda where Joseph Kony had really ruin the country had turned boys and girls into child soldiers. And there was you know, they were separated from their families because there was a stigma. And I thought, if I go and I teach, these girls are going to give them a voice. It's going to give them agency is going to give them a way to change their lives. But I faced no electricity, no Internet, and if I was to give a camera to a girl, she's going to sell it for food. So as my friend and my brother, Van X, who is a journalist in Uganda, who said to me, you need to teach girls work. Coming, who are becoming journalists, they're coming out of university and they can't get jobs. And I'm like, why would they need me. And he told me that when they come out of university, they can't get work because they lack a camera, and they don't know how to use it. But a guy doesn't need to have the education doesn't need to have anything, he'll still get the job. And I was like, bingo. So I started researching, how do we do this, and I went out to the community at large, and I put it on Facebook, and I said, this is my goal. Scary, audacious. I just want to do this, who's in and people started supporting me with a GoFundMe to purchase small, you know, or send me small, reusable cameras. And at this point, was our first I wasn't going to go and spend a hell of a lot of money, because I didn't have it, to purchase big cameras. I just took whatever I could get. And so we went on a trial run to Uganda in August 2018. And I taught 15 Girls, and I was like, I'm on to something. Now, I taught 15 Girls in a rudimentary space with no internet, but we made it work. And, you know, we had no flush toilet, we had no you know, nothing that you're used to from home. But when you go into developing world, you not you need to ingratiate yourself into their culture to their way of living. You don't bring your Canadian or American sensibilities to something and say, Well, this is not here, I can't do this, you make it work. And so that's what we did. And that's when cameras for girls was born. Because I was looking around the room and I didn't know what to call it. And it was first underneath my travel company, because I was doing photo tours at the same time as I cameras, girls, because they call everybody girl child, cameras, girls, cameras for girls. And that's how it came about.

I mean, I just love it so much as you kind of unpack it tell us what it really means to unlock, you know, what is it? What is this unlock? When you go through this curriculum, kind of give us a overview of what you're teaching? What are these workshops look like? Yeah, what does that do from a trajectory standpoint for the girls?

Yeah, great question. So to date, we've done three workshops, 2018 2019, and 2022. And we're heading to do our fourth in June. And so it has slowly built up to a four phase curriculum. Originally, it was just, you know, a three day workshop and then come home, and I'll teach you whatever I could, because you have to evolve. And our thing is always always to ask them, What do you need to succeed, so that we can heal that instead of saying, Hey, here's the curriculum, take it or leave it and do your best with it. Because I think I wanted to make sure, coming from that colonial time, we leave that colonial mindset at the door. And we really engage them as people and as participants and owners of the program. So it has always been there. So phase one is our four day workshop. So I give them with the camera to keep. And, you know, I teach them over the three days how to actually manipulate the settings, but also keeping storytelling in mind. And storytelling is at the heart of everything they do. Right. They're learning how to be journalists or in communications. So the camera becomes a tool for storytelling. And then on the fourth day, we work with a local NGO partner, this year will be Girl Up Uganda. And what they do is the same themes of gender equality. And so I'm always looking for partners in the same space. But what they do is give us access so the girls can come meet their beneficiaries, meet the staff, research possible storytelling, storylines, learn how to interview a subject ethically, with informed consent. So we'll talk about that I think a little bit later. And then they have to go away and put those stories together a 500 word article and 10 photos minimum, combine it, I approve it, it goes into their portfolio, but more importantly, the NGO gets it as a thank you for letting us participate and build a long term relationship, right and in the community. And then I come back to Canada after I've done my little bit of a travel or whatever, and, you know, got my brain reset. And I start the year long online training. So when I couldn't get back to Uganda, because of COVID was three years stopped us. I was like I can't let all this work go to, you know, to waste. So I sat down and I built an online library of tutorials. So anything I record, any interviews I do is journalists around the world, or photographers or what have you, all goes on to this platform. And so they can access training 24/7 And it gives them cheat sheets and photography. I mean, it just keeps on going. But the benefit of this platform is that because they're not always able to have data. When I'm training every day, every every Friday live, they can now watch and learn and then come back with questions. And then they have monthly assignments they have to do because what's the point of learning something if you're not going to put into practice, and then they have a final assignment for graduation. And then when we finish that we also interviewed at the same time, how to build a resume, how to build a cover letter, how to get a LinkedIn profile optimized, and out there, so you're being seen. And then on the other side of it, they're learning, editing with a partner in Uganda, because we built a editing lab. And then they get access to learning digital media skills, as well. And it just keeps on going. So that's phase two, and phase three, phase four comes at the end, and it's mentoring. So if a girl says to me, Hey, I'm not happy in my job, or I can't get a job or whatever, I start offering the mentoring with people from my community, right? They might be photographers, they might be Miss business people. One of my girls this morning said that she really wants to work in academia. So she doesn't know how to take her steps from working in communications to getting that far. So I'm going to set her up with a mentor, a woman who's in academia in Uganda who can mentor her and bring her up. And then right now I'm working on Phase Five. And Phase Five came out a very, very difficult conversations I'm having with some of the girls who have faced systemic harassment on the job, meaning they might get a job, but they're told they have to pay for it with money or sex. And so how do I deal with that when I'm here? And if they're not willing to share about their experience with others? How do they lift themselves up and others at the same time? So by building a peer to peer mentoring program run by two former students, now they have a safe space to say this happened to me, as it happened to you? How do we deal with it? And then 47 girls coming together to empower and move the platform forward together? My god, that's just going to be so powerful, right,

Amina? Okay, I just got a moat for a hot second here. Because I, I wonder if you just set out to give someone a voice, to empower them with giving a voice. But it appears to me sitting on the outskirts here, that you have built this empowerment movement. And you have not only given a voice, and a face, an agency, to our life, into what is real, and to harassment, into harm into trauma, but also into empowering dreams. And I just think this is the beauty friends of chasing such a big vision is it is and I mean cameras for girls, clearly to me is unfolding like a lotus flower right now. And I and I think that because you have centered this. So ethically, and giving the power to the community to the girl on the front line, you are going to continue to find issues that need to be uncovered in the way that your storytelling it is so humane and so real. And, and I just thank you for it. And it's really, you know, I gotta give a little story context here because our unicorn, Julie confer has an incredible story of going to Uganda. And staying when spring break was Sister Rosemary, if you've ever checked her out just Google Sister Rosemary Time magazine's most influential person of the year. And here's Julie, you know, in the middle of Uganda working with these girls who cannot read or write, and she is trying to translate the story ethically. And I just think anybody can be a part of empowerment. And so one Thank you, Julie, for doing that I love I love the way these paths are coming along. But I want you to talk about the ethical storytelling piece because we talk about ethical storytelling so much on the podcast. And I want people to understand it's not linear. It's not just a voice or the way that people write. A photograph has the capacity to be an ethical storytelling lens. So talk about how you're training these budding documentarians and journalists to use imagery to story tell. And I know that the way you do it is so uplifting it's grounded in dignity and humanity. You've already talked about the consent piece. So talk about that and share some tips for those who are listening about how to use this medium of photography in a way that empowers uplifts and really grows community.

You know, it's kind of funny, because two months ago, one of the assignments was ethical photography, because they don't get taught that and informed consent. So I had sent them out on a street photography project. And I said, now you have to work in teams, just keep yourself safe. Ethical photography comes in the way of how you document your subject, but before you even pick up that camera, you are explaining who you are what At your premises, where are you going to paste those? Post those photos? Are they going to be on social media? Or are they going to be learned for a tool and there's going to be for your assignment, your subject needs to understand what you're doing with it. Now informed consent comes on the other side of this, a lot of us walk around and we're like, Oh, can you just sign a consent form. And you think that's it, they signed my consent form, I can do whatever. They don't understand English many times, or how to leave us a read a legal document. It is our responsibility as journalists, documentarians, photo journalists, even photographers out there traveling, to explain through a translation translator, if possible, or the guide, or whoever is working with you, to this person, what that document means and what you're going to be doing with these photos. So one of my students said to me, yeah, but we're just trying to survive, we don't have time to worry about this. I said, if you don't worry about this, from the beginning, in your career, you're never going to grow as a, as a photographer, as a journalist. And you're never going to be able to put out photography out there. Without that storytelling tool in your in your belt, that ethical storytelling in your belt. And I said, it becomes so essential, especially in a community like Uganda, where they're very averse to people coming in, foreigners coming in, and just photographing them at will. And I'm guilty of this. When I started going to Uganda, right, I'd see something important, interested in everything. And then one day somebody chased me with a machete, machete.

Oh, my gosh, it was funny. But

it was like a wake up call to me, too. I'm like, What am I doing? Right? I wanted a picture so badly that I had to get chased to get that thing in my head that Oh, my God, I'm not being ethical. So just to give you an idea, last year, I was in Tanzania leading a photo tour. That was my second business. And I've since closed it. But I used to do photo tours to Africa. And I had taken two people to Tanzania. And we went to see the Maasai, everybody goes to see the Messiah, right? And they think, Oh, it's okay, just to pull up my camera, because everybody else does. I put my camera away. And I went up to I asked my guide, who is the leader here. And so they pointed him out. And I went up to him. And I said, Hi, Peter. My name is Amina. I am a photographer, and I'm leading this photo tour. But I don't want to bring out my camera until you teach me how to say hello in the local language, how to greet people and how to explain that I'm not here to take photos at will. But I want participation, I want their approval. And he looked at me and he said, you'd might have to be the first person who's ever asked this. And because I asked that they invited me to photograph a male ritual of a goat slaughter that to celebrate a wedding that had happened before the day before. He said, women don't get to do this. Women don't get to eat the meat. Women don't get to cook. Women don't get to do any of this. You're the first woman to photograph this. And I was so honored. But because I took the time. And I said you don't even have to ask me what I'm going to do with these photos. Because they will not get shared on my social media. This is for educational purposes only, or for my portfolio or what have you. But I'm not going to be sharing this at well, because this is this is a ritual that is very sacred to the people. And so I think when we especially when we travel, a lot of people go and travel into cultures that we don't understand, right? Taking the time to understand the culture and the local language and the local people. And then asking for permission is part of ethical photography. But when it comes to journalism, and when it comes to documenting another world or even your own people, is taking two minutes to explain what the purpose is, what you're doing there, how you're going to use it and getting that consent. It really is it just it's so simple. But we make it so complicated. And we think that we don't have to do it because they're those people. They don't matter. Oh the hell they matter. Because they're giving you that permission.

And everyone matters here. Everybody more value no one Yeah, out of we're for good. And I just want to say to the community, the listening community right now that right there was a masterclass on how to do ethical storytelling through the use of photography, go back, listen to it again, in your brain. And it's honestly has me rethinking even the way I photograph my children. You know, when we're not at home, and we're in different countries, or what I'm taking photos of we all have a responsibility here. Thank you for that.

And I think it's what stands out to me is that it's one of those moments where you slow down to go further, you know, and just having that conversation opens you up to so much of a deeper relationship and respect. So Ultimately, I think the experience was so much deeper to

Oh, absolutely. It's something I'll never forget. So and I printed out those images, and I sent them to my guide in Tanzania, so he could deliver them to them. Like we did that with all three tribes that I photographed. Because if I ever get the opportunity to go back, it's that I built a relationship. I've built a friendship from afar, right? Yeah. And it's deeper, it goes deeper those photographs, when I'm old and can't remember anything? I'll have those photographs to remember. Oh,

you know, to be back at the goat slaughter. Yeah. I mean, I mean, to look at which of you you have created in such a short period of time channeling your passion is humbling, I mean, to even recognize, but I want to hear a little bit of just the founder journey, you know, what have you learned that you would pass on, we have a lot of young executives or new founders that want to start something, chase something, what surprised you, or what's a lesson learned that you would share today,

I think that, when you really dig, dig deep into your passion of what makes you you photography's always been a part of that, that when you think about how you can pay it forward to others and teach others, whether it's in your local community, or whether it's international, it doesn't matter. But how you and it doesn't have to be photography can be anything, maybe you're a really good coder, and you want to teach STEM skills to youth in, you know, in your community, to uplift someone, it doesn't matter what it is. But I think when you tap into that, and you build community around that, and you put it out there, this is what you it's amazing how many people like light up, but I talk about cameras for girls, right? And I sometimes get surprised that people know about us, right? So today I got a last week, I got an email from a journalist in the UK who's written a report on gender equity, and why is there not enough representation of females in journalism? And they found me and I'm like, How did you even find me? Right? Like, I looked at my, nobody's nobody's seeing our website. And that surprises me. But what, what really keeps me going is community is building community, both locally and internationally. And when I can collaborate with others, to bring this mission and their mission together, to you know, expound that effect. That's, that's where the magic I think, happens.

You are just such a wonder to me, because, you know, we meet you initially, and you say, I'm just like kind of slough and through this nonprofit work, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to learn. And I'm just thinking to myself, your instincts and your gut, are building this revolutionary nonprofit that is not only storytelling, but it's healing. And it's empowering. And I just want to say, keep going with what you're doing. And I, and I'm sitting here wondering if if we can get to know one of your girls. And I want to be really mindful of maybe not sharing her name, or maybe you're comfortable with it. But talk about one of your girls going through this experience with you and where she is today?

Sure, yeah, I've got like a lot of stories, but one of my favorites, which was the impetus for starting the mentoring is patience. So patients took our training in 2019. And then over COVID, she kept on going into work. She was working at online news agency called chimp reports as their editor, and as a journalist, and she also had her own blog. And she kept on going into work, but not getting paid. So when I went to my training last June, we met I met a bunch of the girls the night before just to say, hey, let's have dinner and drinks and let's catch up and what have you. And so she stayed back after everybody, you know, gave me hugs and left and whatever, and I'm going what's going on? And another girl who was also in the same class, Lydia, was there and patients said, Well, I'm afraid to tell you, but I've been going into work and not getting paid. And I was like, what? Cuz I talked about this all the time. And she said, exactly. I didn't want to tell you I said, Okay, so tell me what's happening. She goes, Well, the they say they don't have money to pay me. I said, and you're going in every day, she goes, yeah, it's my job. And I said, Okay, let me ask you this. How many girls are on a team? She said, three. And I said, How many guys she said, I about five to eight. And I said, are they getting paid? And she said, Yeah, I said, so none of the girls are getting paid. She goes, No. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go home tomorrow, you're gonna stay home from work and Lydia chimes in she and she's the quiet houses mouse girl. She never spoke during the whole thing. But she started her own photography, business and is building an empire like I'm so proud of her. And she says that patients Listen to me Now listen to mama Amina, she knows what she's talking about. And so I said, you're gonna go and you're gonna grab that computer and you're going to finish that LinkedIn profile that I told you to to a year ago. And when I get home in two weeks, I'm going to find you a mentor. So I did. Six months later patients one travel writer of the year, and you get what I just got goes Bob, and runs her own consulting company now working for other travel brands writing and traveling everywhere and getting paid for it. You go patient, she's just one of 65% success rate that we've had from the 47 girls. 32 actually, as of yesterday, 33 Girls, Wow,

I'm so proud of her, I'm proud of you,

I think it takes a switching, switching their way of looking at things because they're told you don't matter. You shouldn't be working, you should be married, you should be you know, your daughter, Yura, you know, wife, whatever work in the fields, do whatever it takes, but don't Don't you know, your voice doesn't matter. And when you show them that their voice matters, watch out world, they can do anything.

Okay, I mean, I just I love your storytelling. I love how the care and the love you have for each of the students that you've worked with to but I wonder if you would take us back to just philanthropy, you know, your journey is just is dotted with it. What is a moment of philanthropy that's really stuck with you, in your journey that you take us back to,

I think, aside from all the politics around it, which is what I'm learning there is, I didn't you know, you don't realize it until you get into it is at the heart of it, that people just at the end of the day want to do good. And that the donors that do support us want to see you succeed in doing good. And I think that's what keeps me going. We I will put it out there. We don't have money. And this is all grassroots I can't get I struggled to get funding because we're registered in Canada, and we work in Africa. And I don't want to register in Africa, because it's an avenue for getting bribed. So we won't go there, the politics. But when I see communities coming together, or people collaborating in this space, and saying, Hey, because I'm a big people community, like connector, I love it when I learned about somebody and I say, Hey, have you heard about this? Or have you seen this, maybe this grant will help you. Because I think if we share with others, even if it doesn't directly support our endeavors, we're making it better for all of us, right? We're making a better world in philanthropy. So I think that's what I would say, and watching some people who have really made huge impacts on few dollars is what drives me, not these big organizations, big, big overhead and big staff. Because I you know, I have personal feelings around where the money's actually going. But I think it's the grassroots efforts of the people who just against all odds, just keep on pushing to keep going, make a difference.

I just think you have that abundance mindset. And I think that's the I think that's what's rising for cameras for girls is that there's this collective effort of community in circling each other. And it feels like I mean, I even just think of Lydia coming in and using her voice in that moment to say, I want to be supportive of you. And you do deserve this. And this is your value. And so I really commend you for baking that in because I think it gives you a sense of nimbleness. I think it gives you a sense of trying things you know, that we call innovation, it gives you risk, and look at you soaring and I just want to tell you, I'm gonna make a gift we're for God's making a gift to your cause right now, I encourage anyone to join us to make a gift because this is the kind of nonprofit This is the kind of movement that we want to see empowered in this life. And so thank you also for making it so easy on your donate page on your website. But tell us, you know, as we wind down here, Amina tell us, what's the one good thing that you would offer up to the community?

If you have a gift? If you're really talented? Something right? Don't keep it to yourself, pay it forward, whether it's, you know, you're really good at dressing people go and pay it forward at a local women's shelter who that woman who's trying to get back into the workforce and she might not have enough money for a nice wardrobe for an interview. Or you cut hair. It can be simple things right? Go and volunteer time to cut hair for the homeless and get them on their feet. Or if you're really into international development work. Forget about the voluntourism volunteer tourism is very different from volunteering, right? Because voluntourism means you go and you tour more than you volunteer. It's just a conduit to get there. And there's a lot of ethics around that. So I just say that maybe you're a photographer, maybe you have some other skill set, mentor people, mentor somebody to bring them up to where you are right. I love mentoring and talking to other people about how I got started. And if they have an idea how they can get started. And so somebody asked me the other day, would you come on board and teach others? And I'm like, hell yeah, I will spend time totally doing that. And save them from the pitfalls that I went through, or the knowledge that I lacked at the time. Because it saves time, and it saves money. And it gets you out there doing good,

faster. That's what it's all about.

You're such a great human being. I mean, I've just loved this conversation. And I know everyone in this community is just rooting for you and wants to support you. So let's connect up on the ways that y'all show up online. I mean, camera for girls, points to your website, social channels, how can people find and connect with you personally, to Amina?

And tell us what you need? Like, what do you need? Right? Let's, let's pour into that.

Okay, so first, let me tell you how to find us. So we are www cameras for fo our girls, with SS dot.org. Sorry. And then you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and I got on Twitter as everybody else is getting off. Cameras for girls. And then what we need? Well, we're always looking for funders, obviously, anybody who you know, wants to put their dollars behind empowering girls in in Africa, because our goal is to expand, not just in Uganda, but outside, go across Africa, and help every girl who wants to tell her story. If you have used or new camera equipment, you can donate that to us. And we give you an in kind donation receipt. And what that does is also save items from the landfill. So we're also environmental, go girl, right. And then if you have, if you want to volunteer, you have a skill set that you want to mentor somebody in, we're always looking for mentors, or volunteers who want to come along and teach photography. So you know, I do this every Friday and run the organization. And then and so I'm always looking for photographers who want to step in for a Friday session and teach something, photography or storytelling related or whatever. So yeah, those are the three ways that we can people can get involved.

Well, I know we have a lot of photographers in this community and a lot of people that just want to do good. So yeah, it's such an easy outlet for you to pour in. And I just want to close this out by thanking you from the depths of my heart Amina for being the change you wanted to see in the world. I just think about your dad walking through that station. And I think about how full circle, it's come that you've come back to your roots. And you've given those girls this opportunity. And I just hope that ripple just cascades as far and beyond what we can see. So keep going. My dear friend,

thank you so much for this opportunity to share to talk with, you know, like minded people. Because, again, it's very rare to find that and I'm honored. I'm sincerely honored to call you friends and thank you.

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