Give a child a camera and save the world | CNN

Empowering children through photography —

The 100cameras staff travels the world teaching children how to use cameras to document their lives. The photos are sold online and all money raised is donated to a child-centered organization serving the young photographers' communities.

Courtesy 100cameras

Kiden from South Sudan —

In 2008, 100cameras launched its first project at St. Bartholomew's Orphanage in Kajo Keji, South Sudan. Kiden was one of 80 children who called the orphanage home at that time. She was 14 years old when her father threw her out of the house because she was pregnant. She took this photo when she was 16.

Courtesy 100cameras

Kabang from South Sudan —

Kabang took this photo when she was 14. Her father died after a long illness in Uganda. Her mother tried to provide for the family but eventually took Kabang to live at St. Bartholomew's Orphanage. She wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

Courtesy 100cameras

Buba from South Sudan —

Buba came to St. Bartholomew's Orphanage with her brother and sister. Her father died during the civil war in Sudan, and her mother left her children so she could remarry. Buba dreams of being a teacher one day. She took this picture when she was 14.

Courtesy 100cameras

Joey from New York —

In 2009, 100cameras started a partnership with a community center on New York's Lower East Side that provides after-school educational opportunities for children in the neighboorhood. Joey took this photo when he was 14. He says he likes photography because two people can take a picture of the same thing, but it can have two different meanings.

Courtesy 100cameras

Andrew from New York —

Andrew took this photo when he was 13. He says he likes photography because it allows him to express himself in different ways. One day, Andrew would like to be both a professional horseback rider and a photographer.

Courtesy 100cameras

Alexander from Cuba —

In 2011, the 100cameras team launched its third project in Cuba in partnership with the community development organization that works to improve education and humanitarian needs for hundreds of local children. Thirteen-year-old Alexander was among the photography students in Cuba, and his photographs reflect his careful attention to detail and the architecture from old Havana.

Courtesy 100cameras

Alexander from Cuba —

Alexander used his photographs to explore the double meanings and paradoxes of both beauty and destruction found within the city, but his favorite things to capture were the fields of the countryside.

Manuel from Cuba —

Ten-year-old Manuel was one the team's youngest photography students in Cuba. He likes to focused on the details of doors, architectural tiles, various modes of transportation and the beautiful trees that lined his neigborhood.

Courtesy 100cameras

Give a child a camera, save the world

Story highlights

100cameras travels to areas in need to teach photography to children

The photos children take are posted online for sale to benefit their organizations

The nonprofit has traveled to Sudan, Cuba and New York, will be going to India later this year

CNN —

The eyes of a child see things differently than an adult. It’s an idea that intrigued four young women in college. “If you could give a child a camera, they could tell a reality in a way that a foreigner, or even an adult, could not,” co-founder Angela Francine Bullock says. Several years later, they turned that idea into a way to help children around the world and founded the nonprofit 100cameras.

The concept is simple. 100cameras staff members travel to countries armed with cameras. They partner with a local organization serving children in the community. For the next few weeks, they teach the children how to take photographs. Then they set those children free to capture their world and post the photos online.

For the kids, sharing their life with the rest of the world is a reward in itself, but 100cameras goes one step further. The photographs are available for sale, and 100% of the profits go back to the children’s organizations.

Dramatic pictures show power of photography

It’s about “addressing poverty from the inside out, instead of the outside in,” says Bullock, who is now the company’s Public Relations Director. “We partner with a local organization that is on the ground. They know the local needs … and they know the best ways to serve these children and their families.”

The group’s first mission was to an orphanage in Sudan. The photographs were so powerful, they decided to turn their New York apartment into an art gallery, moving furniture into bedrooms, and invited anyone they knew. “From there we said we have to do more, and that’s been our mindset ever since. We always just need to do more.” says Bullock.

View our photo galleries on CNN Photos

Since that 2008 trip to Sudan, they have brought their cameras to Cuba and taught kids in New York. In October, they are making the journey to India. What was once a side project for a group of friends now has almost 20 members and recently hired its first full-time employee.

Photographs from these trips have brought thousands of dollars to the children’s organizations. Bullock says they have a lot of freedom as a small group to address each community’s needs individually. “That’s the great part of our model. We get to have the conversation with the organization and ask, ‘What do you need?’”

In Sudan it was lifelines, like food and medicine. In New York it was educational needs, after-school learning and computers. Cuba’s greatest need was humanitarian aid like food and medicine, but the community also needed a center where the children’s parents could be taught business classes.