Photovoices Desa Ban
Voices of Youth from the Slopes of a Volcano
Youth Project in East Bali 2016 – Present
Desa Ban in Karangasem, East Bali, is one of Bali’s most isolated and dry regions. It is also an incredibly beautiful place. Located on the slopes of Mt. Agung and Mt. Abang, the villages dotting the mountainside have views extending all the way to the sea. Since 2016, Photovoices International (PVI), in partnership with East Bali Poverty Project (EBPP), has been leading a multi-year photovoice project with youth who go to six schools on and around Mt. Agung and Mt. Abang.
Defining the Issues
2016 – 2017
With funding from the Empower Foundation and a Spark & Ignite Award, Photovoices International facilitated the students’ year-long journey to learn more about issues that directly impacted their lives. The youth chose seven topics to focus their lenses on: village potential, roads, trash, malnutrition, poor housing, school drop-out and child marriage.
Most of the 105 student participants had never held a camera before and were anxious about breaking them or “doing it wrong.” Plus, the difficult terrain and sensitive nature of some of the issues made the project challenging. In spite of these challenges, the students remained committed to contributing to their communities.
The students have come a long way since then. In addition to becoming photographers, they learned how to engage with and interview community members, participated in critical dialogues about sensitive topics, and took strong positions on issues that concern them. They created presentations based on their research using photographs and stories to highlight their concerns to decision-makers.
At the final photovoice workshop and exhibition, government leaders were deeply affected by the students’ photos and stories. They expressed surprise and concern that child marriage and school drop-out had continued to impact the students’ lives and promised to provide community outreach to address these concerns.
As a result, with support from various government offices, roads were fixed, houses were built, solutions to the trash problem were discussed, and eco-trekking routes were designed. The students’ perseverance in focusing on and learning about sensitive issues has led to a significant decrease in child marriages due to pregnancy since the project started.
Digging Deeper
2018
The second year of the youth project started in March 2018 when students from Bunga, Cegi and Pengalusan hamlets returned home from months spent in evacuation camps due to Mt. Agung eruptions. As part of a project designed to engage boys as allies on gender concerns, students were asked to reflect on the ways gender impacts their daily lives. The girls reported sexual harassment as among their major concerns and the boys agreed.
After six months of exploring harassment and other gender-related issues, the students were inspired to create anti-harassment campaign materials, supervised and assisted by PVI and EBPP teachers. This music video is a compilation of the work of three student groups: the song “Stop Pelecehan” (Stop Harassment) by the student band Volcano, a skit on street harassment, and a short educational clip on school-based harassment experienced by girls designed to accompany a new school policy on harassment.
Additionally, students share their thoughts on gender equality and child-age marriage in this video
Students from Ekoturin Schools Voice Their Concern Against Sexual Harrasment ©PVI
Widening Community Participation: Present
As follow-up to the first two years of photovoice projects with youth in Desa Ban, PVI, in partnership with EBPP, continues to support the students’ ambition to create campaign materials on the topics of sexual harassment, child marriage, and gender equality. In 2019, the students brought their campaigns to all three of their hamlet communities as well as local 6 schools, 3 government schools and 3 other EBPP schools Students’ interest in continuing their learning and increasing their exposure to gender issues resulted in an invitation to Dr. Nur Imam Subono, Associate Professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia, who came to Desa Ban in September 2019 to meet and discuss the issues with the students. He also provided two workshops on gender issues and the pivotal role of men in the prevention of sexual harassment.
