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This morning I woke up to a World Vision update highlighting a group of teens in Romania who used photography to address human trafficking in their country. Sounds vaguely familiar! World Vision partnered with UK PhotoVoice, a wonderful pioneering group in the art of advocacy photography, for a 10 day workshop with the Romanian teens. I love the WV definition of advocacy: "Simply...

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originally published in Muted Voices (2009). Beth Bruno. In today's world, images abound. No longer does news lag as print media makes its way to remote corners of the globe, controlled by journalists and professional photographers. Now, one sees in live time through the eyes of average citizens exposing injustice via twitter, capturing footage with cell phones and publishing to the web in seconds. Images are powerful. They pin themselves to our minds and burrow in our hearts. They do not lie and they are hard to ignore. And in today's world, anyone can be an image maker. Unfortunately,...

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The October 24, 2010 edition of the New York Times Magazine was titled, "The Women's Empowerment Issue." It highlights an Afghan woman that I admire: "At the age of 27, after 14 years of marriage, with seven children and a husband 30 years older than she was, a husband who was addicted to opium, who once deprived her of food because she gave birth to a girl and not a boy, who beat her when she took too long to conceive, who pulled out her hair and knocked out her teeth to make her too ugly to remarry, who beat her again when he couldn't find money for opium because he had spent it on phone cards...

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We rented Toy Story 3 this weekend and I was the only one crying at the end when Andy drove off to college, leaving his beloved toys in the good hands of a new child. A mixture of melancholy "prophetic emoting" for the day, 8 years from now, when my son will be the one driving off and a more transcendent moment- the kind that grabs you and catches your breath. It's a theme which runs its course throughout the Toy Story trilogy and echoes in our hearts too- toys were created to be played with and are only truly fulfilled when in the hands of a child. Today I stare at our inherited, hand me down...

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In my household, my husband and I often have to assign speaking turns, including our own. If left without intervention, our three children would talk louder and faster to dominate one another and the topic of conversation. Sometimes our youngest, at age 4, raises her hand. Sometimes she yells, "This isn't fair! I haven't gotten to say anything!" I have been known to issue talking time-outs. Our children are not unique. As many American families will resonate, our culture values and dignifies children... typically. They know their voices are valued. My 5th grade son actually led our parent-teacher...

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I’ve caught wind of a buzz around a new book many churches are reading and applying. It is When Helping Hurts, by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett. I read it this summer with delight and thought I’d offer my review and recommendation to you all. If you ever wondered what my MA in International Care and Community Development entailed, this book is my program in a nutshell! It also covers much of the theology and philosophy upon which I am basing A Face to Reframe.

This...

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This excerpt from Kabul in Winter by Ann Jones is a haunting reminder to me of why participatory photography- cameras in the hands of community members- is so vital. The indignity of posing, as proof that the donated clothes from an American church had been properly used, is such a poignant example of how we view so many of the world's poor. What was her name? Where was her husband? What was their story? Did she want these clothes? What does she want? How would she tell her story if given the camera and time to put words to images that she wants to frame her life?

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I hung back, feeling...

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