Video update by FairMail Peru photographer Anidela
The great thing about the FairMail cards is that you can see on the back of each card who you are supporting directly with your purchase. Each FairMail teenager has his or her own story about dreams, hardships, passions and getting ahead in life.
We have now updated the personal profile pages of our current photographers in Peru with 9 new recorded video updates. You can view all of them below or on each teenager’s personal profile page.
In pursuit of diversifying the income from the photography by the teenagers we are happy to see that more and more companies and organisations are asking FairMail to provide fairtrade images for their communications. This way not only helping the teenagers earn money to pay for their own education, but also providing added inspirational value for their communications.
Here are 3 examples of corporate communication helping teenagers into the school benches:
Fairtrade FairMail photography for ASN Bank year report
The ethical ASN Bank has been a regular customer of FairMail for years now. For the 2014 year report of their foundation they asked FairMail to produce images of fair trade coffee producers in Peru. During the photography trip along the Organic Coffee Route Diana and Angeles shot images of the coffee farming family they stayed with for a couple of days. Allowing them to pay for their university education.
El Puente is one of Germany’s biggest distributors for the 800 German fairtrade shops. To communicate the story behind their fairtrade products they wanted pictures of their Peruvian producers. Therefor in November, 3 FairMail teenagers will travel to the capital of Lima for 3 days to visit 9 producer groups. Their pictures will not only show how they work, but also the impact fairtrade has on their lives.
Juan Gabriel shooting fairtrade photographs for Hostal Naylamp
Hotel Naylamp is based in the Peruvian fishing village of Huanchaco, just like FairMail Peru. When they wanted to update their website they asked the teenagers to shoot images of their rooms, restaurant and guests. Guided by 2 of our volunteer photography trainers they took the requested images during 4 FairMail classes. Definitely something different compared to shooting for FairMail’s Christmas cards!
If you would like the FairMail teenagers to provide images for your employer’s communication, please contact us here.
Diana, Jorge and Angeles with their high school certificates
As you can read in FairMail’s second yearly social impact report, 2014 was a great year for most of our Peruvian FairMail (ex-) participants: half of the team graduated from high school! A big congratulations to Anidela (16), Angeles (17), Diana (16) and Jorge (18) for persevering in their high school years.
Angeles already graduated in the beginning of the year. Since then she is studying extremely hard at the private Kepler academy, preparing for the exam to enter the national university of Trujillo on the 15th of March. This is the hardest university to get into and her public high school level isn’t high enough so that is why she invests in this expensive academy. Her grades during the trial exams are very promising but as she says herself she shouldn’t become overconfident and relaxed. To be continued…
Jorge with his certificate
Jorge finished high school in June as he attended a weekend school aimed at people who need to combine their high school with work. Since then, besides attending FairMail, he has been working and orienting on his further education. This month he is enrolling to study as chef and as driver/mechanic of heavy vehicles. He hopes to combine working as a cook on the short term with finishing the heavy vehicles course on the long term. This would allow him to get a well-paid job in a construction company in one of the many new mines in Peru.
Diana with her certificate
Diana just finished high school in December, in the same school as Angeles. Instead of taking well deserved summer holiday’s she went straight on taking summer courses. In March she will start a 5 year communication sciences study at the Cesar Vallejo private university in Trujillo.
Anidela also finished in December, in second place of her high school class. She is also skipping summer holidays to attend the preparatory academy for the Leonardo de Vinci private university in Trujillo. In March she will start to fulfill her long cherished dream of studying business administration at the university with the scholarship she earned.
Due to different reasons there were 6 vacancies for teenage photographers to be filled in Peru and India. With the help of our local partners (Asha Deep School in India and CEP, Mundo de Niños and ACJ in Peru) we pre-selected 5 responsible teenagers who are motivated to go school but have economic difficulties to do so, for a trial period. During this period they will participate in all of FairMail activities and trainings, trying to show us that they are also motivated to work for FairMail. And that they will be able to make full use of the opportunity they are getting with the camera we borough to them.
The vacancies in Peru where created due to three teenagers reaching the age of 19 when they stop taking pictures for FairMail and start to concentrate on their (university) education or personal business with the money they earned so far. One teenager in Peru stopped attending FairMail classes regularly. When after several warnings he didn’t show up another time we were forced to terminate his participation.
In India the 2 vacancies where created due to motivational problems of 2 of the teenagers. After several conversations and warnings this convinced us that 2 other teenagers would be able to make better use of the opportunity that FairMail seeks to give to deprived but motivated teenagers. All the 6 teenagers who stopped participating in FairMail, regardless of the reason why they stopped, will keep earning 50% of the profits made to invest in their education and housing. But they won’t be able to submit new pictures to FairMail.
