Tell us about your key sustainability initiatives in Africa
“We run two key sustainability initiatives in Africa. One is the Young People Programme (YPP), which supports young people across the region in sharing their perspectives and stories through the medium of visual storytelling to promote the key Sustainability Development Goals surrounding social sustainability – for example, social justice and gender equality.
In partnership with charities and other NGOs, we work with underserved young people in the region to give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to tackle sustainability issues that matter to them. We run educational workshops that teach participants about the SDGs and visual storytelling, and then encourage them to create photos or videos that raise awareness of and call for action on issues important to them and their local communities. We then support the participants in making their stories heard by running exhibitions and other events which showcase their stories to the wider world.
For example, in South Africa, we worked with Wild Shouts Outreach to illustrate through photography the effects of poaching, climate change and other aggressors that threaten the planet and its wildlife. The programme engaged young people from disadvantaged communities bordering Kruger National Park in wildlife and wild places through photography.
We also run a programme called Miraisha, which focuses on delivering job opportunities and future livelihoods to young people across Africa. It offers workshops to photographers, videographers, filmmakers and print business owners to help them develop their skillsets and gain a livelihood, often in partnership with local education institutions.
What are the key pillars of the initiative and what milestones have you achieved so far in Africa?
Our programmes are all about delivering real-world change for participants. We aim to expose people to learning opportunities they might not otherwise have, and to empower them to develop skills needed to address issues that are important to them and realize their own potential.
To date, the YPP has supported more than 6750 young people across 27 countries across Africa, including Libya, the DRC, South Africa, Kenya and this year Botswana and Namibia. Our YPP partner in South Africa, Wild Shots Outreach, WSO, have also driven huge community change, winning two international awards. In 2019 Neville Ngomane won Young Environmental Photographer of the Year and in 2022 Rifumo Mathebula won Young Environmentalist of the Year – Neville is currently studying filmmaking in Cape Town and Rifumo is now Programme Director at WSO
Meanwhile, our Miraisha programme has trained more than 6,500 people to date throughout 10 countries, with over 550 participants receiving paid commissions for their work, and more than 250 receiving awards and industry recognition. We are aiming to reach 10,000 participants by 2025.
How do the initiatives mentioned above contribute to the achievement of SDG goals?
Our Young People Programme is all about raising the voices of young people across the world to inspire positive and sustainable change. We believe that visual storytelling is a powerful medium to change mindsets and inspire people to act to push for a better world.
The different iterations we’ve had of the programme have tackled different SDG goals, as every region and community face different challenges. Our collaboration with Wild Shots Outreach at Kruger National Park, for example, addressed goals 10 and 11; reducing inequalities and creating more sustainable cities and communities by giving young people who live near and around the park the opportunity to visit these wild places and take photographs of their local surroundings. Where they wouldn’t have had the chance to engage with these wild places before, Canon’s YPP reconnected young people to their local wildlife and heritage through visual storytelling and education.
In another edition, the programme partnered with UN Women to address gender equality and quality education in Libya, by delivering workshops to young female participants around entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology. The sessions empowered participants by teaching them digital skills, but also allowed women to share their unique stories and explore issues relating to their identity, family history and social issues, using the course to amplify their voices where they might have not been heard previously.
Tell us about Canon’s engagement at the The Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) which took place in Doha, Qatar?
At the LDC5 this year, we ran a special edition of the Canon YPP, where thirty Youth Delegates were sent Canon EOS 4000D cameras and lenses to document their lives in their local community. This collection of images and videos will be featured in the UN HQ exhibition to promote a more representative range of voices and perspectives in photography.
Alongside this, we also ran a series of educational storytelling workshops to discuss the important role of imaging in advocacy. This was led by Canon Ambassador Guia Besana and Michel Lunanga, Youth Representative from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and mentor and teacher for the YPP, who guided the Youth Delegates in visual storytelling, and challenged them to share photographs with accompanying messages to express the changes they want to see happen in the world over the next ten years.
It was amazing to be able to run this special edition of YPP at LDC5, as a continuation of all the great work we’ve done in the region to date. Past editions of the programme have been run throughout the continent, focusing on different SDGs and involving a range of talented young individuals – from reconnecting young participants with their local wild places in Kruger National Park with Wild Shots Outreach to promoting women’s stories and gender equality in Libya – YPP initiatives have promoted key social sustainability goals throughout Africa.”
Any challenge in implementing these initiatives?
Perhaps the biggest challenge we’ve faced when running our programmes is that Africa is so incredibly diverse. Through both the YPP and Miraisha, we tailor each individual initiative to best serve those taking part in it. So, when you’re working on different programmes with people from entirely different countries, or even different communities within a single country, you need to ensure you’re equipping them to address the problems that are unique to them. The challenges that young people face in Libya are very different from those that people in South Africa might face, for example.
Thankfully, across the years of running our initiatives in Africa, we’ve developed fantastic partnerships with organizations and individuals who support is in both finding the young people in most need of our support and adjusting our programmes to suit their individual needs. For example, we have a very close relationship with Mike Kendrick of Wild Shouts Outreach in South Africa, where many of our programmes address issues around wildlife conservation, a pressing problem in the country.
We have also been helped by continuing to work with many participants of our programmes. For our Miraisha programme, 19 participants are now employed as Canon trainers who help to deliver the programme itself, while several YPP participants have come back to support future projects.
What does the future hold for the initiative in Africa?
What’s most exciting is seeing the long-term changes that our programmes are making for both individuals and their communities. Our projects aren’t just about engaging with young people for a couple of weeks or months and then just wishing them the best – we’re equipping them with the long-term skills, knowledge and inspiration that can open up new job opportunities for themselves or allow them make sustainable changes for their communities. These things can take time, so we’re excited to see what change there is in five, or even ten years.
Also, we’re excited to continue expanding our initiatives throughout Africa. YPP and Miraisha have run in 12 countries throughout the continent and we’re eager to bring both projects to more regions throughout the continent.