Does learning about photography make your life better? If you’re 18, and have already been homeless, and in foster care, and been through major family disintegration—does using a camera or participating in a photography program make some kind of tangible difference for you?

That’s the central question for a community based photographer, and the organization that works with him or her. And it’s a hard one to answer.

The Freedom to Create Prize celebrates the power of art to fight oppression, break down stereotypes and build trust in societies where the social fabric has been ripped apart by conflict, violence and misunderstanding. History shows that prosperous societies are founded upon creativity. Societies that encourage artistic expression build strong foundations for economic, political and cultural development. They will lead tomorrow’s world.

“It’s grabbing everybody,” says Marcus Vega, a participant in the kNOw’s photography class in Fresno with artist Joseph Smooke. “Like when I come here, I get to escape from my daily life. It just cancels out everything. It’s like a whole new environment.”

As always the kid at PIO school are happy to see visitors, especially visitors than offer them help and friendship.

Activist Award Director Kathleen Hennessy travels to Guatemala as a volunteer photographer and meets Claudia Jona, an 11-year-old Mayan girl. “Being journalists, we are trained not to get too close, to be objective. How can you be objective when it comes to a suffering child? But, here, I am not working as a journalist. I am a volunteer. I have permission to care. I have permission to give.”

Fazal Sheikh is an artist and activist based in Zurich, Switzerland. His work has been widely exhibited, in institutions ranging from the Tate Modern to the Princeton University Art Museum to small huts in rural India. He has collaborated with numerous foundations and non-governmental-organizations, and he has won, among many other awards, a MacArthur Prize.

I asked him to do an interview with the PhotoPhilanthropy blog because he approaches collaboration, strategic partnerships and accessibility in a way that I find very inspiring.

In the UK there’s an old saying,”an Apple a day keeps the Doctor away”, this has been adopted here in Cambodia for the children of the PIO school, but using eggs and a daily multivitamin suppliment tablet.

All is not lost when people such as these give their time and resources so readily to help children that are most at need. Two agencies. and individuals, that fit together admirably to try to meet some of the needs of children of less than fortunate circumstance are People Improvement Organization (PIO) and Kids International Dental Services.(KIDS)

” We provide dental care to children in orphanages where they come after being abandoned by parents, family members. They are forgotten children of sex slavery, dead parents of AIDS, gang violence, street accidents. We have seen and treated over 1000 children during our stay in Cambodia”.

Across the world, traffickers supply millions of human beings for use in forced labor activities such as domestic service, or work in rice fields, sweatshops, cocoa plantations, or mines. Some are trafficked into the commercial sex industry. Trafficking touches every single nation – America, Europe, Africa, Asia & more. There are an estimated 27 million people enslaved in our world right now. And human trafficking is the third most profitable illegal activity, right under arms dealing and drug trade.

Orphfund is raising money to build orphanages in Haiti, and needs your help.