The goal of this project was to analyze the impact of photojournalism as a research method – to understand how photojournalism can be an effective means of empowerment, self-expression, and form of communication. The Project was sponsored by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Asociación de

Consultores y Asesores Internacionales (ACAI). Seventeen Costa Rican Colombian refugees were selected randomly by ACAI, UNHCR’s implementing partner organization in Costa Rica, to participate in the 6 week workshop. The participants were taught basic concepts and principles of design of photography (composition, balance, color, repetition, contrast, harmony, perspective, light, texture, movement, rule of thirds, etc.). The first day of the workshop the participants were lent a digital cameras and were instructed to take photos of whatever they like as long as it is through the perspective of the following three questions and detailed within their reflections:



• What is your life in Costa Rica like?

• What is good about your life? (What are the positive aspects?)

• What should change? (What are the challenges?)



Moreover, the participants kept a journal, where every week they would reflect on their photos and expand on how they answer the above questions. These reflections were later used as part of the descriptions to the final photos which are presented in this book.



The community-based participatory research approach allowed for the participants themselves to tell their own stories of the significance behind their lived experiences. They were given the opportunity to express themselves, given a voice to shed light on their daily realities as they see them – not by what others project onto them. The

following 45 images and reflections were self selected by the participants to be shared with the Costa Rican community in the form of an exhibit to celebrate the 2009 International Refugee Day.