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People Living with Cancer

Photovoice Advocacy Initiative

What is Advocacy?

• Advocacy is the act of standing up for a cause and getting support for actions that can draw the attention of those in power to issues so they can take steps to improve cancer care in our country.
• Through speaking out about problems, cancer advocacy provides an opportunity for patients, their families and supporters to influence decision making processes that affect their lives.
• Advocacy uses different strategies to influence decision-making at local, national and international levels, including lobbying, social marketing, information, education and communication, community organizing and other tactics.

 

What is Photovoice?

• Photovoice is an advocacy tool developed by the sociologist Caroline Wang (*Wang & Burris, 1997) and uses the simple method of combining photographs and a story to express a person’s point of view.
• Using photovoice as an advocacy tool for this project will allow the voice of cancer patients to be heard very clearly.

*(Wang,C. C., & Burris, M. (1997). Photovoice: Concept, methodology, and use for participatory needs assessment.)

 

How does Photovoice work?

• A person tells the story of the challenges they experienced because of cancer.
• This story is then written down either by the person themselves or by a facilitator.
• The person then takes (or chooses) a photograph to illustrate their story and submits it to the PLWC database of cancer stories.

 

• Combining a story and a photograph creates a very clear and powerful message about people's personal experiences.
• These combined stories and photographs will be used in advocacy initiatives, to make issues related to cancer very clear to government, community and other stakeholders.
• These stories will be used in a variety of advocacy activities to highlight problems and to make positive changes in the field of cancer care.

 

How to participate in the PLWC Photovoice Project?

A) Interviews and Workshops:

Participation can be through an interview with a PLWC facilitator or by attending a PLWC photovoice workshop. For queries, comments and to participate simply contact the PLWC office.

Phone number: | Email:

Toll-Free Line 7

B) On-line participation:

• Follow the steps through the On-line participation section on this webpage to submit your story and to upload your photograph.
• Before you do this, make sure that you have your photograph handy in digital format (on your computer as a scanned or photo image), and ensure that you have obtained consent from any identifiable people in your photograph.
• Please note that the nature of this project dictates that stories cannot be submitted without a photograph.
• If you do not have a photograph you can select one from the catalogue of images contributed by photographers for this purpose, just follow the online prompts.

Ethical consideration

• When participating in the Photovoice project it is important to take certain ethical implications into account. Photographs should always be respectful, tasteful and thoughtfully selected.
• Before you submit your photo for use in the PLWC photovoice project please ensure that you have secured informed consent from any people who can be identified in your photograph (even if they are family members).
• Photographs of crowds or public scenes don’t require any consent and people must be given the informed option not to be part of group photographs that are taken.

What types of photographs can be used?

• a photograph that depicts your challenge with cancer
• a variety of photographs can be used and can be very realistic or photos that represent symbolic meaning
• photographs chosen from the PLWC archive of donated photographs.

Who can participate?

• Any cancer patient or their family members.
• Any person with a desire to develop more effective, inclusive and patient centred cancer care in South Africa.
• This includes, health care professionals and any person who is touched by cancer in any way.

The aim of PLWCs Photovoice project

PLWC’s advocacy initiative uses the photovoice method to gather authentic information about what South Africans have to say about their experience of cancer care. The emphasis of the project is to collect material that highlights problems, challenges and issues that need to be addressed.

The purpose of this project:

• To especially focus on the challenges people face during their journey with cancer,
• To provide a platform for people to have their stories and experiences documented,
• To create a qualitative collection (database) of messages/issues/challenges /stories for practical use in a variety of cancer advocacy activities e.g. exhibitions, lobby activities, protest actions, representations to government, community awareness projects etc.,
• To ultimately contribute to providing stakeholders with an understanding of the many challenges that cancer patients have to face during their journey with cancer.

Submit your photograph

Please complete the fields below and upload your photograph or alternatively download the form below:

Photovoice Advocacy Initiative Entry Form
(252 KB)

 

Review the special stories gathered by this research project .

If you would like to discuss the research or if you would like to use the data in any way please contact Dr. Lynn Edwards or Linda Greeff at

	Photovoice Advocacy Initiative Entry Form
	To upload your own photo attach file here (100Mb Limit)
	OR YOU CAN
	Select a Photo from our Database Click Here to Selected a Photo If you heve selected a photo and wish to replace it with another photo just Click Here to select another photo
	Date *
	Interviewer's Name (if applicable)
	Please complete the 20 questions below:
1	1. Full Name
2	2.a City/Town *
	2.b Town where you (or family) go/went for cancer treatment: (give details if you go/went to more than one place for treatment) *
	Country
3	3 Email Address *
4	4 Age *
5	5. Gender * Female Male
6	6. Are you a cancer survivor or Patient? * Cancer Survivor Patient Not Applicable
	Diagnosis *
7	7. Was treatment at a government or private hospital? * Private Government Both Not Applicable
8	8. Did you have surgery to treat your cancer? * Yes No Not Applicable
9	9. Did you have chemotherapy to treat your cancer? * Yes No Not Applicable
10	10. Did you have radiotherapy treatment? * Yes No Not Applicable
11	11. Did you have any other treatment for cancer? *
12	12. State if you are a family member of a cancer patient, a community worker, a nurse, a doctor etc.? (You may be a patient AND a nurse, community worker etc.)
13	13. What photograph do you choose to represent your story? * (Please give details below. Explain what this photo represents or why you choose it)
14	14. What is the title that you would like to give to the photograph that you chose? *
15	15. What is the story of your journey with cancer? (How did having cancer affect your life? What challenges did you have to face?) Remember to first tell your story to your facilitator and then you can put down the main points below: *
16	16. Are there specific problems that you had in your cancer experience that need to be highlighted?
17	17. How has it been for you to tell your cancer story now? *
18	18. Is this written record accurate? * Yes No
19	19. If there are people in your chosen photograph, have they said that it is OK for the photo to be used in the PLWC photovoice database? (This does not apply if you have chosen a photo from the PLWC collection) * Yes No N/A
20	20. Is it in order for your story AND photograph to be part of the PLWC photovoice database and to be made public through advocacy activities? * Yes No
21	Enter Word Verification in box below *