PHOTOVOICE

Portraying 25 young people from the municipality of Vila Verde, challenged to express themselves about discrimination and social inequalities, was the central objective of Photovoice “Vozes Visuais: Portraits of Belonging”. 

This image and sound exhibition, integrated into the NET-IDEA Project and carried out in partnership with the Prado Community Center of the Braga Delegation of the Portuguese Red Cross, brought together visual stories that explore identity, the feeling of belonging and inclusion.

As part of Photovoice, young people were guided through a mentoring process that allowed them to capture their environments and experiences of belonging in a personal and authentic way. 

Initially, they were challenged to reflect on essential questions: what makes them feel at home, where they find welcome and identity, and where, on the contrary, they face exclusion. During this process, each young person had the freedom to explore their city, capturing images that represented their perceptions and feelings. 

Through this mentoring, we encourage young people to express, with the support of their own lenses, how they see the world around them, translating the complexities of their daily realities into images.

This experience allowed them to find a unique way of communicating their perspectives on inclusion and discrimination, transforming their visions into visual voices that became an essential part of the exhibition.

This experience of each young person, captured through the images and accompanied by recorded testimonies about their meaning, was recorded in the exhibition in an interactive way, through the use of QR codes, which allowed visitors to explore the stories behind each image.

More than an idea, inclusion is a practice that we must all bear in mind in our lives. Based on this premise, we were challenged to bring this desire to life through photography, transforming the individual characteristics of each young person into powerful narratives of identity.

The young people captured in these images are more than just faces; They are bearers of individual stories that reflect the diversity of a community in constant transformation.

In each expression captured, we sought to record a narrative of belonging or exclusion, an affirmation of identity and a vision of what it means to find a space where they feel accepted.