Life at age fifteen is different for everyone. It is a time of self-discovery and learning about the world around us, deeply shaped by community and culture. Street Child’s photo exhibition, “FIFTEEN: Through the Eyes of a Generation,” explores the realities faced by teenagers in five communities where we work. From refugee camps in Uganda and Bangladesh, remote communities in Nepal, and active conflict zones in Ukraine and Nigeria, this exhibition explores what it means to be 15 in drastically different contexts. It is a celebration of youth, resilience, and hope in honor of the more than 15 years Street Child has been working to ensure that all children are safe, in school, and learning.
To create the exhibition, Street Child collaborated with local photographers in each country to organize photography workshops with the 15-year-old participants. These professionals played a key role in teaching the teenagers the power of photography and encouraging them to capture the stories they want the world to see.
On this event we showed a glimpse of this incredible exhibition with three different photographers. Meet them here and discover more of this project.
Yagana’s favourite photograph shows children in school who are happy and enjoying their studies. “The story is about how many boys and girls need to go to school, but some schools have no chairs,” she says. Her photographs also depict children’s activities beyond the classroom, including playing and helping with daily chores like collecting water. Yagana’s goal is to become a medical doctor.
Daniel’s photographs depict everyday scenes in his life, including his home, children in the settlement, and vendors selling chickens and vegetables in the community market. “I want to be an engineer and repair broken things in our community,” he says.
“My hope is to be a doctor because I want to help my fellow women in life,” says Zainab, who enjoys reading. Her images depict children waiting to collect water at a bore hole, which is only turned on for certain hours of the day. Another image portrays a local woman weaving a traditional hat called a hula worn by men in Nigeria. They take weeks to make and are worth between €5-9 each.