From 8 to 25 January, Glenda Santana de Andrade conducted a field trip in Johannesburg as part of the Growing Up Across Borders (GRABS) project, in close collaboration with our local partners RCP – Refugee Children’s Project and Aron Tesfai. The visit focused on participatory creative workshops using photography and podcasting with young people. The objective was to create supportive spaces where youth could develop skills, express themselves, and produce their own narratives about migration, belonging, gender, and social change.
During the field period, we worked with two groups of participants: an in-school group of 11 young people (7 girls and 4 boys) from countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Tanzania, and an out-of-school group of 9 young women, all with origins in Congo, some born in South Africa and others having migrated.
The photography workshops introduced participants to photography as a tool for self-expression and storytelling. Across the sessions, young people learned basic camera techniques, composition, and visual narrative approaches. They documented aspects of their everyday lives, and reflected on how images can communicate experiences, emotions, and social realities. Participants selected and curated their own photographs and discussed the stories behind them in group reflection sessions. The process emphasized authorship and perspective: each participant was encouraged to develop their own visual voice rather than simply produce technical images. The workshops have now concluded, and preparation is underway for a public exhibition in Johannesburg, where the photographs will be shared with a wider audience.
In parallel, we conducted participatory podcast workshops with both groups. These sessions focused on voice, dialogue, and narrative construction. Participants collectively chose themes, developed questions, interviewed people, and recorded discussions. They worked on structuring episodes and reflecting on how to communicate their ideas clearly to listeners. Podcasting proved to be a powerful medium for confidence-building and agency: young people took the microphone into their own hands and articulated their views and experiences in their own terms. The sessions highlighted collaboration and peer support, with participants helping each other formulate questions, refine ideas, and gain confidence in speaking.
The workshops resulted in four completed podcast episodes that are already published on our website as part of the GRABS Podcast Series. These episodes center youth perspectives and lived experiences:
- Episode 13 – Sense of Belonging
- Episode 14 – Youth as the Essence of Change
- Episode 15 – Experiences as Migrants
- Episode 16 – Peer Pressure and Gender Equality
Created and recorded by the young participants themselves, the episodes explore migration, identity, belonging, gender relations, and social pressures. They represent a concrete outcome of the participatory methodology and ensure that youth voices are not only heard within the workshop space but also reach a broader public audience.
The photography and podcast sessions functioned not only as technical training but as spaces of expression, collaboration, and confidence-building. The outputs that will continue to circulate through the exhibition and the published podcast series.