More than 700 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Pho­toVoice Ex­hi­bi­tion host­ed on March 27 and 28 at East Gates Mall and April 3 and 4 at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus.

This com­pelling mul­ti­me­dia ini­tia­tive com­mem­o­rat­ed In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day and the 30th an­niver­sary of the Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Ac­tion, spot­light­ing re­al ex­pe­ri­ences of women and girls through pow­er­ful pho­tog­ra­phy and first-per­son sto­ry­telling, and ac­knowl­edg­ing their re­silience and courage.

The ex­hi­bi­tion was or­gan­ised joint­ly by five UN agen­cies in­clud­ing UN Women, UN­HCR, WFP, UNF­PA, and UNCDF in part­ner­ship with the In­sti­tute of Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

Un­der the theme “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equal­i­ty. Em­pow­er­ment,” the Pho­toVoice ini­tia­tive fea­tured eight women in Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing youth ad­vo­cates, farm­ers, sur­vivors of gen­der-based vi­o­lence, mi­grants, en­tre­pre­neurs and civ­il so­ci­ety lead­ers who came to­geth­er to share their lived ex­pe­ri­ences cap­tured through a com­bi­na­tion of still im­ages and record­ed tes­ti­mo­ni­als.

Each of the pho­tos shown dur­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion was tak­en in a mean­ing­ful lo­ca­tion cho­sen by the par­tic­i­pant—be it their home, work­place, or com­mu­ni­ty space—and paired with a one-minute au­dio record­ing cap­tur­ing why that mo­ment mat­tered.

“This ex­hi­bi­tion served as very pow­er­ful re­minder of the progress that has been made, and the re­main­ing chal­lenges that both women and men are still fac­ing in the coun­try. One such chal­lenge is the is­sue of vi­o­lence.

“Through the sto­ries of eight re­mark­able women and girls, this ex­hi­bi­tion in­spired an open di­a­logue about women’s rights” said Joan­na Kazana, UN res­i­dent co­or­di­na­tor in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Je’nille Maraj, plan­ning and co­or­di­na­tion spe­cial­ist at UN Women Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice – Caribbean said, “As we mark the 30th an­niver­sary of the Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Ac­tion, the blue­print for ad­vanc­ing women’s rights and gen­der equal­i­ty, we must take stock of how our women and girls, and young peo­ple, ex­pe­ri­ence the world to­day.

“The is­sues we face in our life­time have the po­ten­tial to be­come in­sur­mount­able chal­lenges as young peo­ple tran­si­tion in­to adult­hood, if we do not recom­mit to ad­dress­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty, re­duc­ing pover­ty, and giv­ing women voice, choice and safe­ty.

“The Joint UN Pho­toVoice ex­hi­bi­tion was a mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive way to en­gage women and men, and youth voic­es, pro­vid­ing a plat­form for them to voice their con­cerns and to share new and emerg­ing per­spec­tives across crit­i­cal ar­eas of con­cern.”

UN­HCR head of of­fice Aman­da Solano Badil­la said, “Dar­i­ans, an asy­lum-seek­er who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ex­hib­it, is a pow­er­ful ex­am­ple of a woman em­pow­er­ing oth­ers through her en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it and her tes­ti­mo­ny of re­silience.

“Sup­port­ing women like Dar­i­ans is cru­cial to build­ing a more eq­ui­table and just so­ci­ety. By in­vest­ing in their po­ten­tial and am­pli­fy­ing their voic­es, we can fos­ter in­clu­sive and sus­tain­able so­lu­tions that ben­e­fit every­one.

“The Bei­jing De­c­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Ac­tion recog­nis­es the unique chal­lenges faced by refugee and dis­placed women, in­clud­ing those who are in­ter­nal­ly dis­placed. It calls for tar­get­ed ac­tions to ad­dress their needs and con­sid­ers that forcibly dis­placed women are not just sur­vivors, they are lead­ers and agents of change.

Their knowl­edge, skills, and lived ex­pe­ri­ence are fun­da­men­tal in shap­ing so­lu­tions that im­pact their lives and must be mean­ing­ful­ly in­clud­ed in de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es.”

In ad­di­tion to view­ing pow­er­ful pho­tographs and lis­ten­ing to sto­ries us­ing tablets and head­phones, the 700+ vis­i­tors had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share their re­flec­tions via feed­back sta­tions, video mes­sage record­ings and hand­writ­ten notes ad­dressed to the women fea­tured.

These av­enues sparked mean­ing­ful com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, with many of the mes­sages con­vey­ing heart­felt words of en­cour­age­ment, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing sup­port.