Photography gives teenagers a better life

Underpriviledged teenagers from India and Peru have been given a golden opportunity to make money through photography by co-operation with the company FairMail, which is producing fair trade...

Underpriviledged teenagers from India and Peru have been given a golden opportunity to make money through photography by co-operation with the company FairMail, which is producing fair trade greeting cards with photos made by the youngsters.

FairMail, which is currently helping 35 young people, offer photography training and medical insurance and the teenagers get 50% of the profits of the sale of their own cards.

Janneke Smeulders, founder of FairMail said: "Co-operation between the FairMail teenagers and us is a temporarily co-operation with a long term impact: during the four or five years that they participate in FairMail they can develop their self-esteem, their creativity and their work experience and earn enough money to follow a higher education. When they leave FairMail (when they are 19 years old) they have the experience and the money needed to continue their lives as young adults independent of FairMail.”

Even when teenagers leave FairMail they continue to receive money for their postcards, for as long as those postcards are being sold. “With all this extra 'luggage' they can get a better job or start their own company so that they can have a family with better future perspectives and better quality of life than the family situation they grew up in. So FairMail offers them a life changing opportunity, which they can grasp if they really want it. They have to do it themselves in the end,“ Janneke added.

Betty Weyder Chanta Carhuapoma, an 18 year old from Peru, joined FairMail in 2009 to secure a better living for herself and her family.

By co-operating with FairMail she has managed to save enough money to repair the roof of her house, which was about to collapse.

"I used to work sorting rubbish for recycling with my father. There are six people in my family and everybody needs to work. I found out about FairMail through a social project and realised that it was a fantastic opportunity! Now I can sleep without worrying that it will fall on me in the middle of the night. I am going to study Computing with my FairMail savings because it will be easier to find a job that pays me well afterwards. This will give me security and I will be able to help my family," Betty said.

FairMail is also about to expand to the fishing town Essaouira in Morocco. Janneke also said the company is working towards offering more and more quality fairtrade stock photos on its website and also via known stock sites like Corbis and the Dutch Hollandse Hoogte.

“FairMail gives all organisations that use stock photos the chance to use fairtrade photos for a normal price, with the extra added value that behind every photo we can tell the story of the young photographer who can finance her/his education with the revenues of the photo,“ said Janneke.

FairMail was founded in 2006 in Peru by the Dutch sociologist and entrepreneur Janneke Smeulders. FairMail is member of the World Fair Trade organisation. It won various awards including: the ASN Bank "World Prize" against child labour in 2011, the Dutch Card Award for the most innovative card concept in 2009 and Business in Development Challenge 2006. In August they won the Ben & Jerry’s first “Join Our Core” competition for social enterprises http://www.joinourcore.com/.

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