Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide
About the project
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Worldwide is a photography exhibition and campaign that highlights the work of Lendwithcare, an initiative of leading aid and development charity CARE International UK. Lendwithcare empowers entrepreneurs to work their way out of poverty with dignity through the provision of micro lending and business skills training in eleven countries around the world.
The photo essays on display, commissioned and curated by arts social enterprise FotoDocument, feature inspiring women from five of the countries where Lendwithcare operates including Ecuador, Pakistan, The Philippines, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty and yet are key to development. They are often the change agents of the family, investing in businesses and spending a greater proportion of their income on the welfare of their families.
The visual stories illustrate how entrepreneurship can lift women out of poverty, providing lasting social and economic change. Local documentary photographers have been commissioned to produce the work, where possible, leveraging their knowledge of local language and customs. Commissioned photographers include: Shaista Chishty, Ana Caroline de Lima, Cynthia Matonhodze, Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi and Veejay Villafranca.
Each photographer has been generously supported with artistic mentoring through FotoDocument from industry professionals including Vincent Cianni, Anna Fox, Melanie Friend, Simon Roberts and Russell Watkins.
Essays
FotoDocument is an award-winning arts social enterprise that brings visibility to positive social and environmental initiatives around the world through documentary photography. FotoDocument runs a visual storytelling service for NGOs, corporates and the public sector and provide routes for meaningful participation in their work through a photography workshop programme, an ethical photography agency as well as facilitating the Marilyn Stafford FotoReportage Award for women documentary photographers annually which is supported by Olympus.
For more information on how to commission or work with FotoDocument, please visit:
www.fotodocument.org @fotodocument
Lendwithcare allows people in the UK to connect with an entrepreneur in a developing country who needs a loan to support their small business. As the loan is repaid, it is re-credited to the lender’s Lendwithcare account, where it can be withdrawn or reinvested to support another entrepreneur.
For information on how you can become a lender for as little as £15, please visit: Lendwithcare.org or email info@lendwithcare.org
This exhibition has been made possible through the generous support of international law firm Hogan Lovells.
