Gillian Moore

Women of North East Trinidad shared im­ages of life through their own eyes at the Nalis Me­dia Room on June 20, at the launch of Our Com­mu­ni­ty, Our Vi­sion, Our Voic­es, a pho­tovoice ex­hi­bi­tion.The col­lab­o­ra­tive project, by the In­sti­tute for Gen­der De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies and the East Port-of-Spain De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny, was co-or­di­nat­ed by Kishi An­i­mashaun Ducre, PhD, 2011 Full­bright schol­ar at UWI and as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor of African Amer­i­can stud­ies at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty.Moth­ers from neigh­bour­hoods in East Port-of-Spain, Mon Re­pos -St Barb's, Beetham Gar­dens, San Juan, Nev­er Dirty in Mor­vant, and Port–of-Spain South were trained by Full­bright schol­ar Gi­gi Gate­wood, who al­so cu­rat­ed the ex­hi­bi­tion.Ducre greet­ed the guests who had gath­ered for the ex­hi­bi­tion, and ex­plained that pho­tovoice was a "de­moc­ra­tis­ing" process, "a means to bring com­mu­ni­ty voic­es in­to the dis­cus­sion of plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment."

The im­ages showed stark re­flec­tions of want, ne­glect and crime, but al­so cap­tured scenes of home, fam­i­ly, hope and nat­ur­al beau­ty.Ducre said there had been a com­mon re­frain among the par­tic­i­pants: "The in­no­cent should not have to pay for the guilty."Rep­re­sent­ing the par­tic­i­pants, Uri­ka Rogers said peo­ple in their ar­eas of­ten lived at the hands of "cor­po­rate and po­lit­i­cal vic­tim­i­sa­tion," and that they were "stig­ma­tised on the ba­sis of ge­o­graph­ic lo­ca­tion."She said through the pho­tovoice ex­pe­ri­ence, the women had de­vel­oped "co-op­er­a­tion, and a sense of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and re­spect for each oth­er."The ex­hi­bi­tion runs un­til Au­gust 5, and is open to the pub­lic dur­ing nor­mal li­brary hours.