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Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control
BACKGROUND: Photovoice is a method used to help engage community members to understand local realities and promote social change. Photovoice uses cameras in the hands of participants as a tool to visually document a specified topic. Photos taken by participants allow for reflection and stimulate dia...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8256559/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34225822 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40900-021-00286-x |
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author | Mtuy, Tara B. Mepukori, Jeremiah Lankoi, Joseph Lees, Shelley |
author_facet | Mtuy, Tara B. Mepukori, Jeremiah Lankoi, Joseph Lees, Shelley |
author_sort | Mtuy, Tara B. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Photovoice is a method used to help engage community members to understand local realities and promote social change. Photovoice uses cameras in the hands of participants as a tool to visually document a specified topic. Photos taken by participants allow for reflection and stimulate dialog on an issue to ideally lead to social change. Trachoma, hyperendemic in Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania, is the commonest infectious cause of blindness worldwide, caused by chlamydia trachomatis. The bacterial infection commonly occurs in childhood and over many years repeated infections leads to inflammation and scarring of the eyelid. Often as adults this leads to the upper eyelid turning inward and eyelashes scratching the eye, resulting in pain and eventually blindness. We used photovoice as a tool for Maasai women to share their lived experiences of educating peers on trachoma and ultimately empowering women in this society. METHODS: This public engagement intervention was conducted September thru October 2017. We held a workshop on trachoma control for 20 Maasai women including use of photovoice method. Women were asked to disseminate information from the trachoma control workshop to their community and to capture their experiences using disposable cameras. Five weeks post-workshop we facilitated a discussion and women displayed photos of the successes and challenges they encountered as advocates for trachoma control in their community. INTERVENTION OUTCOMES: It was observed throughout the process and at the photo discussion meeting, that women articulated empowerment by this experience; as educators, agents of change and a source of valued information. CONCLUSION: Photovoice should be considered for future interventions as a communication tool on health issues and to empower women to be ambassadors for health promotion. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8256559 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82565592021-07-06 Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control Mtuy, Tara B. Mepukori, Jeremiah Lankoi, Joseph Lees, Shelley Res Involv Engagem Commentary BACKGROUND: Photovoice is a method used to help engage community members to understand local realities and promote social change. Photovoice uses cameras in the hands of participants as a tool to visually document a specified topic. Photos taken by participants allow for reflection and stimulate dialog on an issue to ideally lead to social change. Trachoma, hyperendemic in Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania, is the commonest infectious cause of blindness worldwide, caused by chlamydia trachomatis. The bacterial infection commonly occurs in childhood and over many years repeated infections leads to inflammation and scarring of the eyelid. Often as adults this leads to the upper eyelid turning inward and eyelashes scratching the eye, resulting in pain and eventually blindness. We used photovoice as a tool for Maasai women to share their lived experiences of educating peers on trachoma and ultimately empowering women in this society. METHODS: This public engagement intervention was conducted September thru October 2017. We held a workshop on trachoma control for 20 Maasai women including use of photovoice method. Women were asked to disseminate information from the trachoma control workshop to their community and to capture their experiences using disposable cameras. Five weeks post-workshop we facilitated a discussion and women displayed photos of the successes and challenges they encountered as advocates for trachoma control in their community. INTERVENTION OUTCOMES: It was observed throughout the process and at the photo discussion meeting, that women articulated empowerment by this experience; as educators, agents of change and a source of valued information. CONCLUSION: Photovoice should be considered for future interventions as a communication tool on health issues and to empower women to be ambassadors for health promotion. BioMed Central 2021-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8256559/ /pubmed/34225822 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40900-021-00286-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Commentary Mtuy, Tara B. Mepukori, Jeremiah Lankoi, Joseph Lees, Shelley Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title | Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title_full | Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title_fullStr | Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title_full_unstemmed | Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title_short | Empowering Maasai women behind the camera: Photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
title_sort | empowering maasai women behind the camera: photovoice as a tool for trachoma control |
topic | Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8256559/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34225822 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40900-021-00286-x |
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