Greetings fellow Capacity Building Grantee bloggers! For Berrien County’s debut on the blogosphere, I wanted to share a bit about our Photovoice project that we conducted in Benton Harbor in 2011. For our project, we had a good group of very passionate and dedicated individuals who deeply care for their community. Armed with their new digital cameras that we provided, our participants bravely ventured into their community searching for what health “looked like” to them in their neighborhoods. We asked the participants to try to see their community from a “social determinants of health” perspective – to see how their environments, their streets, houses, schools, parks, churches, and workplaces could all affect their health. The results that we got back were breathtaking. 
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Benton Harbor, it is not a town that gets the credit it deserves. Most “outsiders” see Benton Harbor as a depressed place, full of abandoned buildings, unemployment, apathy, and poverty. Truth be told, Benton Harbor has its fair share of blight; but beneath the obvious degradation on the surface, there lies resilience, passion, faith, and power that most people don’t see at first glance. Through our Photovoice participants, we saw the beauty beneath the blight, and the hope for a healthy future in this community. We were encouraged and empowered by the photos, eager and inspired to demand health equity and social justice.
Our photographers described their experience like they were “seeing their community for the first time”. Looking at their familiar surroundings through this new lens helped them see the blatant inequities and injustices that exist here. Through our discussions about the photos and their themes and our Community Health Revival (more on this later), we had a wonderful experience with Photovoice in Benton Harbor. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to pilot this project with such an exceptional group of people and to have learned all we did. We have even been approached about having the photos in a “traveling” show across the city so that more people may see them! I can’t wait to see who else will be inspired to action by our Photovoice Benton Harbor project!
