MISSION:

Youth affected by war, migration and displacement have - by their choices, their actions and expressions - a unique opportunity to raise global awareness and to break the cycle of violence.

In response to this, the AjA Project provides innovative photography-based educational programs that empower youth to explore cultural identity and develop communication and leadership skills, for the purpose of fostering self-sufficiency, both for the individual and their community.


OVERVIEW/ ABOUT

Founded in 2000 and based in San Diego, the AjA Project runs Journey, an after-school participatory photography program that engages refugee and immigrant youth through the visual storytelling process. Students use photography to reflect upon, process, and share their experiences of migration; increase their self-esteem; and strengthen their ability to think critically about their identities and cultural communities.

The AjA Project also has two international sister programs. Record of Truth, based in a refugee camp along the Thailand/ Burma border, is a participatory photography program that provides young refugees from the Karen ethnic group in Burma with tools to document their changing culture and lives. Disparando Cámaras para la Paz, the AjA Project's participatory photography program in Bogotá, Colombia, gives internally displaced children an opportunity not only to reflect on their tumultuous lives but also to be the agents of social change rather than passive observers.

The work created by AjA students helps to create awareness of the refugee resettlement experience and to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue on a local, national, and international scale. To date the AjA Project has reached over 750,000 people through exhibits at the United Nations, National Geographic, the San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, the New Americans Museum, and the Barrio of El Progresso.

AjA's large-scale public exhibits intersect the student's voice with the larger community and create a forum for cross-cultural exchange. Public exhibitions validate the youth's experience, build self-esteem, encourage them to value their heritage, and to embrace visual narratives as a powerful means of social transformation.


HISTORY

In the summer of 2000, the AjA Project's co-founder, Shinpei Takeda, created and implemented Record of Truth, a participatory photography program for Karen refugee youth living in the Mae La Oon refugee camp on the Thailand Burma border. The program provided youth an opportunity to learn documentary photography as a means for recording their lives and their traditions amidst a changing culture. Owing to the success of the Record of Truth participatory photography program, Mr. Takeda incorporated The AjA Project on October 18, 2000. In July of 2002, the AjA Project, a Spanish acronym for the phrase "Autosuficiencia Juntada con Apoyo," meaning "supporting self-sufficiency", launched programs outside of Bogotá, Colombia and in San Diego, California. Since then the agency has provided long-term, community-based programming for over 800 refugee and immigrant youth, and has reached over 500,000 San Diegans through large-scale public exhibits and events.


METHOD

Participatory photography is a creative modality that validates and empowers the participant's perspective and provides a venue for self-guided reflection, reconciliation, and growth. The method has begun to be utilized as a collaborative intervention with marginalized populations such as refugees, who are often represented as the silent subject and rarely find themselves behind the camera, creating their own representation.

This participatory process is the underpinning for AjA Projects' interdisciplinary curriculum, Journey, which has been carefully crafted to provide refugee and immigrant youth the tools to exercise their agency and to critically analyze their cultural identity within the context of their local and global community.


ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND RECOGNITION

Since AjA's founding, participatory photography has grown into a highly respected field. Our unique method and curriculum makes the Journey program a distinctive one in the region and we are recognized nationally and internationally for our innovative youth programming.

In 2008, the AjA Project was invited to the White House to receive the prestigious Coming Up Taller award for excellence in youth programming, presided over by the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

National Conferences and presentations include:

"Visible Rights: Photography for and by Youth," Harvard University and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies;

The United Nations, New York City; World Refugee Day in Washington, DC;

The Clinton Global Initiative.

National Geographic.

MTV Think.