Commenting gives us the opportunity to talk to each other while keeping our work--and effective Visual Peacemaking---at the forefront of the conversation. Of course, some conversations can digress away from the work and lead to new ideas for personal projects or collaborations between our members… hint, hint. This can also be a place for each photographer to answer any questions viewers might have for them.

Below all IGVP galleries, photo stories and documentaries you will see in all-caps & in blue text +COMMENTS. Simply click this to expand the commenting functionality. You can report inappropriate comments via our contact form. And show support for comments you appreciate by "liking" them.

Clicking a second time collapses the comments. Comments are collapsed by default so that the design and presentation of content maintains its integrity.

When you comment be sure to click on "subscribe by email" so that you can follow up on the conversation.

We hope you see how something as simple as this addition can reap large rewards once we begin talking to each other. You may even want to revisit a gallery or documentary you've seen before but couldn't comment on previously. Go for it!

Upload your work for future Staff Pick Awards. We want to promote your stories.

Click Below to Listen. Hear about IGVP's history, what is visual peacemaking, what it is not, why we do it, and a brief vision for the future of IGVP. 

View her photostory here.

Lydia's Profile

Follow her on Twitter

Upload your work for September. We want to promote your stories. We will be giving away another $50 and a Blackrapid strap. 

Well, it took over a year to bring this whole idea to reality, but after dozens of emails, brainstorming sessions, and meetings, we are finally at the point of officially announcing the very first ONE-SHOT Campaignin Iraq. If you haven't been following it, "ONE-SHOT is a project created for economically, physically, and socially disadvantaged 10 to 17 year-old Iraqi children that are living in unfavorable conditions. ONE-SHOT is all about giving opportunities through vocational training in photography and multimedia, while teaching peacemaking values". (If you want to read more about it, go to: http://www.theoneshotproject.com)

The idea behind ONE-SHOT originated with two of the founders of this website, using the peacemaking values that I just mentioned, and having been taken from IGVP's values as well. For that, and so many other reasons, I'm so grateful to the guild members and the rest of this website community.

Now, let me tell you what we are about to do here in Iraq and how we can work together down the road.

First of all, we'll start a photographic vocational training workshop from September throughout November 2011 at the largest orphanage in the Sulaimaniyah region of northern Iraq. There, we'll try to teach the basic concepts of photography, and some multimedia as well. The idea at this first stage is to just familiarize the kids with our tools, let them have fun, and make them excited about learning more about this vocation. Of course, we'll hand them cameras to practice and hopefully make their own photo essays as well.

How you can help?

First of all, we still need more cameras, especially pocket-sized cameras that children can handle easily.  We also still need funds to run this year’s program. Here’s more info.

Secondly, the idea is to finish the whole 2011 ONE-SHOT Campaign by mounting a couple of exhibits around the world so that we can sell prints at them. Why, because our main short-term goal is to support places that are already working with children in adverse situations, such as this orphanage. (Iraq has about 4 million orphans and thousands of them are living on the streets without any type of help. As visual peacemakers, we want to contribute in providing a future to the ones that have none)

How you can help?

-Get in contact with us if you have any idea of a place where we can mount a gallery together. USA, Europe, Asia, etc.

-Help us by making free prints for the kids! (Any ideas how?)

Third, and last, the specific goal for this year, and to support our friends at the orphanage, is to raise enough funds to help them build a small library full of educational books, and hopefully equip that room with a projector and screen, and multimedia DVDs that the kids can watch whenever they want.

How you can help?

-Send us a donation!

-Do you have educational books for children? (It does not matter if they are in English)

-Do you have educational DVDs to share? (Anything from Disney through BBC Life will help)

Thank you so much for all your support.  If you have questions, please send us an email and please follow us on our blog (We’ll keep updating info), our Twitter @oneshotproject and of course, on Facebook.

Peace.

We are removing the Free account and changing it to a Scholarship account activated by permission after a written request is made.

3 factors have influenced this decision:

1. Overwhelming amount of spam accounts that eventually began displaying publicly last week when the spammers started creating BIOs linking to their unrelated business. 
2. A desire to go deeper rather than wider at this point. People who pay $5 USD per month are more likely to return and update their Profiles & leverage them in social media. 
3. We must increase revenues to invest in better SEO, wesite upgrades, and eventually a redesign.

Scholarship rationale: some may still find it difficult to pay $5 a month for Standard membership, especially considering some exchange rates compared to USD. If someone truly desires to be a part of IGVP and cannot afford the minimum, they will take the time to write us a letter of request and likely contribute their best work. 

Overall, this strengthens our online community by weeding out irrelevant or spam material. We will reduce our numbers to those who care and grow more slowly through new members who also care and take ownership of the cause for visual peace. 

If you have comments for our Staff, please send them through our Contact page. 

Looking forward to more good things,

Mario, on behalf of the entire IGVP Team.

Joshua Smith, a member of this group, got connected to me (Mario) through a friend. Once Joshua and I began talking it was “collaboration at first sight.” Joshua was invited out to Turkey in September 2010 to meet me and the rest of the IGVP staff. From that 14 day trip and photo expedition came months of envisioning what the future could hold for the Visual Peacemaking movement. This culminated at a retreat in Dallas, TX, in June 2011 where I met with Joshua, his wife, Melissa, and Manal Fashi―the other creative with a vision for Visual Peacemaking―to talk about officially working together.

IGVP is enthused to announce that Joshua Smith and his wife, Melissa Smith, have been welcomed to IGVP as partners alongside the other founders. Joshua will work closely with me as the Vice President, helping lead in vision, strategy, and the development of IGVP. Melissa will work alongside the staff in Communications. Manal Fashi has demonstrated exquisite design skills from conceptualizations to original graphics, logos, and branding packages. She has been welcomed on as the volunteer staff Creative Director.

Joshua, Melissa, and Manal practice peacemaking in their own lives through photography, painting, and writing. Through their experience with local non-profit organizations working with international refugees, they have seen the need for positive images that help break down harmful stereotypes. They hope to continue to learn how to do peacemaking through storytelling in the Horn of Africa, an area of the world that is mostly misunderstood, and thus in need of Visual Peacemaking.

Additionally, IGVP is happy to announce that Laura Angst from Arizona has been invited on as a volunteer staff member to serve in a support and advisory role. She has a strong background in marketing, social media, and business-to-business relations.

Last, but not least, IGVP must give credit where it is due. And now is the perfect time! All three of the IGVP’s Turkey staff members Logan McAdams, John Machado, and myself have wives who have been an invaluable support in brainstorming, social media, site updates, and general communications. Thank you April, Leanna, and Angela.

IGVP is beyond excited about what the future holds with this additional staff! We've upgraded our “Founders” page to be the “Founders & Staff” page. Please visit this page to put faces-to-names and to read their bios.

Firstly, the Little Town of Bethlehem and Through the Eyes of Hope movie trailers nail our mission and vision for visual peacemaking. Both of these documentaries focus on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, but avoid the common demonizing of one side or the other. Both show Israelis and Palestinians working for the common good of their shared humanity through peaceful conflict resolution.  These documentaries take us beyond the surface, and remind us that we are talking about real people, real families, and real children.

As a staff we feel that both of these works need to be recognized, but we can't award them the staff pick award because they are only trailers; we want to award full works. However, because we understand they can't upload their feature length documentaries we do want to show you where you can buy them.

Little Town of Bethlehem

Through the Eyes of Hope

Our dilemma this month is that no other galleries or documentaries really meet the requirements for the Staff Pick Award. The Staff Pick Award is reserved to highlight exceptional work that is both well crafted and exemplifies the unique goals of visual peacemaking. See About Us & 10 How To's for Visual Peacemaking.

Kelvin Brown uploaded a powerful humanitarian story, The Road to Freedom; I encourage you to watch it. Good storytelling, executed very well through a multimedia slideshow. Yet, as a staff we still didn't feel that the story hit close enough to IGVP's unique mission to award it. There is hope in this story---Enza is helping abused women in South Africa. This is an important story that needs to be told, but does it uniquely exemplify visual peacemaking? 

We can discuss this as a community. Refer to the 10 How To's for Visual Peacemaking and leave your comments below.