Support indigenous girls in Mexico build valuable life skills through photography.

Why we care: Indigenous people in Mexico suffer from extreme poverty and discrimination–but women and girls suffer the most, simply because of their gender.

How we’re solving this: Providing indigenous girls with workshops on human rights, photography equipment and lessons to express and overcome daily obstacles they face.

Through photography lessons and workshops on women’s rights, indigenous girls will gain valuable life skills to empower them to make decisions about their own body, sexuality, work, resources, and future.

Poverty and multiple forms of discrimination plague indigenous communities in Mexico, with women and girls bearing the brunt of these challenges. Some indigenous groups migrate to the cities to look for work, but often they do not speak Spanish, barring them from integrating into communities, getting jobs, or registering for school. Indigenous women face increased challenges in the city due to their ethnicity, poverty, and lack of education and marketable skills.

Colectivo RED plans to unravel harmful ethnic and gender stereotypes by giving girls cameras, education, and a public forum for sharing their perspectives. Between 25 to 30 young indigenous women will have a year of training on how to use cameras as tools of social change. Each young woman will create a photography portfolio that creatively expresses the challenges she faces in life: violence, ethnic discrimination, and difficulty accessing quality education, health services, and stable jobs. While immersed in this self-reflective creative process, the young women will also take a total of ten classes, learning about photographic composition, gender-based violence, and advocacy strategies that will empower them to stand up against violence in their communities.

The one-year project will culminate in a photography exhibition, featuring the girls’ portfolios to increase public awareness on the prevalence of, as well as the need to eradicate and prevent, gender-based violence.

The big picture looks like this: 30 young, passionate, and creative feminists, and countless new public allies for indigenous women’s rights.