Credit: Angus Thomson. Left to right: Rob Levine, Chairman of Workaid, Vanessa Champion founder of PhotoAid, David Newton lead trainer for PhotoAid who is giving the first training session for WorkAid

PhotoAid Global is a photography serviced based in the UK that helps connect photographers with charities and NGOs in the UK and abroad. By providing charities with photographers from all over the world, they can help document their stories and raise awareness. Be it human and animal rights or environmental issues.

Workaid is an international charity that tackles poverty in the UK and abroad. They collect unwanted tools and equipment from across the UK, refurbish them and distribute to disadvantaged people to enable them to learn a skilled trade and earn a living. Since 1986, Workaid has helped approximately 100,000 people to break the cycle of poverty and build better lives for themselves and their families. They are also the winner of the Queens Award for Voluntary Service.

Partnership

The partnership came about when founder of PhotoAid, Dr Vanessa Champion, was looking for someone to refurbish the donated cameras that PhotoAid receives. It was recommended she contact Workaid by some mutual friends. After meeting with Rob Levine, Chairman of Workaid, the partnership was formed.

“I am so pleased to be partnering and supporting Workaid, their ethics and energy match ours,” said Vanessa. “We are running training workshops with their staff so they can take their own photos for website and social media collateral, plus running a ‘Volunteer’s Voice’, ‘If Tools could talk’, and hopefully helping to document the projects they are doing actually on the ground in Africa. Also Workaid are kindly storing the cameras people donate to us in their warehouse and helping to ship them to Africa for us. Note, that we also distribute our recycled cameras here in the UK and Europe.”

“It’s great to form partnerships with organisations we have real synergies with and PhotoAid is definitely one of those,” said Rob Levine. “At Workaid we are updating our website and social media presence; arresting and exciting photos are a critical part of that. When we connected with Vanessa it was clear that she had just the sort of skills and connections to help us down that path. Brilliantly, she is also building our own capabilities so that we are enabled to take better photos ourselves and can take advantage of opportunities whenever they arise. Ultimately all this will help us to attract more donors and volunteers, and give more meaningful and engaging feedback to those we already have.”

Following the announcement of their partnership, they will be running their first project together this month with photographer David Newton. David teaches extensively for Canon and also presents for SanDisk, Manfrotto and Lastolite, giving presentations and workshops all over the world. “In my work I spend a lot of time ‘taking’ pictures,” says David. “The whole language around photography is in taking or capturing something, but there is very little giving. PhotoAid, and the partnership with Workaid, offers me the opportunity to give something back instead.”

More about PhotoAid

As well as providing professional photographic services to charities, NGOs and good causes, PhotoAid will provide the entire service support from booking a photographer through to the design of a book, organising and creating events and exhibitions.

They also run educational programs in the UK and on location and will happily organise talks and lectures for photography groups and clubs.

PhotoAid is also heading out to India in April for the charity, Born to be Beautiful. Later in the year they will be curating an exhibition of photography in the UK from the children of Ana by Karma, a charity based in Bhutan.

How can you help?

If you have old cameras, would like to be part of PhotoAid as a photographer, supporter or other capacity, or can donate time to fix up old cameras do get in touch with Vanessa at PhotoAid makeadifference@photoaid.org.uk

“We all have something to give,” says Vanessa, “and it’s like kick-starting positive karma, you give a little and buckets of goodness come back to you in return. Thanks to everyone in the industry who is supporting us, it means a lot.”

To find out more about PhotoAid and what they do, visit the website

To find out more about Workaid and donating unwanted equipment and tools, visit the website