Help-Portrait

Dec 9th, 2009 6:15 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Poverty surrounds us. It steals wealth and homes and health, to be sure. But I think it’s also fair to say that poverty attempts to steal beauty. Hope. Memories. Joy.

Poverty points at the broken and says “worthless.”

Help-Portrait exists to speak to the hearts of poverty. While others around the world work tirelessly to meet the hands-on needs of people in poverty, Help-Portrait steps in and attempts to revive the inside. The things, that when the outside doesn’t want to live anymore, rise up and give us the strength to keep going.

What is Help-Portrait? Simply a movement of photographers around the world who are using their time and expertise to photograph those in need. By partnering with a local non-profit organization, photographers are able to photograph families (or children or adults) and give them back the portrait free of charge.

On December 12th, over 6,000 photographers at more than 500 locations in 50 countries will partner up with local non-profit organizations to photograph thousands and thousands of people who deserve to be the center of attention. Who deserve to feel special. Who deserve a break.

It may not seem like much—taking a picture of a single mom and her kids. Or photographing a 28-year-old man who wants to send the picture to his family in another country. It’s not a hot meal in those stomachs or a roof over his head.

But it’s hope. It’s a chance. It’s a visible reminder of a carefree moment when all that mattered was standing up straight and smiling as big as possible.

We hope to see those in poverty have their physical needs met as well as their emotional needs. Sometimes we all need a reminder that beauty still exists, even in the darkest times.

Help-Portrait is fighting poverty. Each photograph snapped is an opportunity to reverse the paradigm that “you’re not worth anything.” We are celebrating the beauty in and outside of each individual by providing a mirror in which they can see what we all see: beauty, value, friendship and life.

And maybe this one moment, this one photograph, is the rebirth of hope.

-Annie Downs, Help-Portrait Events Coordinator

TAGS: ONE