Amina Mohamed: Inpowering Women with Cameras
In this inspiring episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast, Angela Nicholson talks to Amina Mohamed, the founder and executive director of Cameras for Girls, a Canadian charity that’s transforming the lives of young women in Africa through photography and ethical storytelling.
Listen to another episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast
Born in the UK to Ugandan parents, Amina shares her powerful journey from fleeing Uganda as a child refugee to building a remarkable career in film and television in Canada. But it was a return trip to Uganda in 2007 that ignited her real purpose - supporting women in Africa to tell their own stories and pursue careers in journalism and media. Her experiences revealed the deep inequities faced by women, especially in accessing education and professional opportunities and sparked the idea for Cameras for Girls.
Since its founding in 2018, Cameras for Girls has trained over 160 young women in Uganda alone, with participants learning photography, ethical storytelling, business skills and how to advocate for themselves in male-dominated spaces. Amina discusses why she avoids the word ‘empower’ - preferring ‘inpower’, recognising that the strength already lies within these women. Her mission is about unlocking that potential and helping women thrive, not just creatively but economically and socially.
The conversation touches on the systemic barriers women face in media, the role of ethical storytelling, the difference female storytellers bring to the table, and how photography can challenge gender norms and inspire change. Amina also discusses the support she receives from male volunteers and the expanding reach of her work into countries like Tanzania and South Africa.
Throughout the episode, Amina speaks with passion and clarity about how storytelling, when done ethically and with compassion, can reshape narratives and rebuild lives. She also shares heart-warming success stories and explains how others in the photography community can get involved—from mentoring to donating skills, time or resources.
This episode is an inspiring listen for anyone who believes in the power of storytelling, equality and giving women the tools to shape their futures.
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Episode Transcript
Amina Mohamed
People are always surprised when I tell them that most of my volunteers are men. They're African men because they want to see change happen, and they love the fact that women are getting cameras telling stories of themselves and the women in their communities. But they're not just telling women's stories, they're telling men's stories with empathy and understanding and compassion.
Angela Nicholson
Welcome to the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast. I'm Angela Nicholson, and I'm the founder of SheClicks, which is a community for female photographers. In these podcasts, I talk with women in the photographic industry to hear about their experiences, what drives them and how they got to where they are now, this episode is with Amina Mohamed, founder and executive director of cameras for girls. Amina early experiences as a refugee has driven her to empower young women across Africa through photography and storytelling. With over 15 years in Canada's film and television industry, she now leads the Canadian charity that trains women in Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa, equipping them with the skills to thrive in media. Amina is a powerful advocate for gender equality in media, and continues to transform lives through her work. Hello, Amina. Thank you so much for joining me today on the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast.
Amina Mohamed
I am so grateful for this opportunity. Angela, I love what you do at SheClicks, so thank you. Thank you so much.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, well, thank you very much. Now, your early experience as a refugee has played a huge role in your work and current position as a way of introduction. Could you explain to listeners what happened to your family when you were a child.
Amina Mohamed
Yeah, we come from Uganda. And just for context, I'm living in Canada at that moment. That's where I grew up. We came from Canada, and my parents were born there. My sister was born there. In 1972 Idi Amin, who had taken over in a coup, decided that all the Indians had to go overnight. So with 90 days notice, he decreed all Asians must leave. And at first we thought he was, you know, he was crazy, but at first we thought it was a joke, but it was no joke. So we were out on the last, the second last plane to leave, headed for Canada. We ended up in Canada because the Aga Khan, who is the leader of the Ismaili Muslims, I'm an Ismaili, was very good friends with the then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and so he made a plea, because many of the countries were saying, No, we don't want the refugees. We don't want them. Send them somewhere else. And so I was born in the UK, and my parents had studied in the UK, but my dad said, No, we're going to Canada. So we came to Canada, and we settled here. And my life has been shaped in by this experience, because I grew up, I'll go into the story of how Cameras For Girls, because it's it kind of comes together. But I grew up thinking that all women and girls had the same opportunities we have in Canada. I got free education, our taxes pay for our free health care, and, you know, life in general is pretty good. And then I was working in film and television at the time, and I thought, Okay, I'm going to go to Uganda and discover my roots and do a documentary about the Indians who were coming back to claim their properties. And that was 2007 and aside from the debilitating poverty, because after idiom mean and what he had done, thinking that he was making the country better for the black African, he had actually ruined the country, ruined the economy, bankrupted it overnight. People were living in worse poverty than ever, and it continues because dictatorship and so, you know, I was meeting young girls and young women, 14 years old, telling me, Oh, I was married off at 14 because my family couldn't afford to educate me, or because I was a girl, they didn't want to educate me. And my whole view of the world changed overnight, my whole view of what is actually happening on the other side of the world, when you grow up in an Indian family who tells you, oh, life was wonderful, but was it for the black African, no, it wasn't. And the shame, the deep shame that came up as well of the, you know, being in a bubble and thinking everybody was the same and not knowing at the time how I could actually make a difference. But that experience profoundly shaped how I looked at the world from then on. And you know, every time I come home from Uganda, and I've been home a month now, it takes me three to four months to settle in, just in time to go back because of the inequities I see there, and coming home to a world that always wants more, but already has enough. And so I. And I really struggle with that and that, that, you know, the experience of being a refugee, building me a deep empathy for others who are facing refugee or immigrant status, because there's a saying, as an immigrant, you come to a new country and you're ready to adopt the new way of life, because you're looking for something different. As a refugee, you're forced to leave the world you knew, and you're constantly searching for the past. You're constantly wishing that it was the same. And I think I've grown up with both sides of the, you know, the way of looking at the world, and so that kind of what shapes me.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, there must be a huge sense of loss. I think if you're a refugee.
Amina Mohamed
There's a lot of loss, and there's, you know, it's, it's a trauma that doesn't go because you have, I was three, so I thought I remembered, you don't remember anything, but watching my parents trauma, which passes on the generation. It's a generational trauma. So if you watch a refugee who's come with children, young children, those children grow up now in a new country, not knowing but when you grow up with generational trauma, it's different, because that never leaves you. And my parents have never gone back because they don't want to see what Uganda became. They want to remember it as it was.
Angela Nicholson
Well, it sounds like a blessing, although it was awful at the time, it sounds like a blessing that you got out and you got to Canada.
Amina Mohamed
Absolutely we are so, like I am so grateful every day for the country that we get to live in. But if you ask me, tomorrow, would I go back and live in Uganda? Hell yes, because I love I love the vibrancy. I love the people. The people are just so beautiful. And when I say to them, oh, I'm a returning, you know, Ugandan, I've come back, I get hugs and I get thank yous, and I'm the one who has to say no, thank you for inviting us back, for welcoming us, because it's their land, it's not mine, it's not ours.
Angela Nicholson
That's lovely. So what motivated you to set up Cameras For Girls? Or why? Specifically, Cameras for Girls?
Amina Mohamed
So I was working in film and television for 15 years. I had an incredible career. I started in wardrobe, my last film Intel, my last film was American spaco, and then I went into producing short films and documentaries, and then into the TV world. But it was a long it was heavy, hard work, like long hours, and I knew that I could not do this forever. So I left that world, and I went into real estate, and then eventually into mortgages and financing, very different world. And I always and I'd put my camera away, I put all my storytelling skills and my filmmaking skills away, thinking, Oh, this is not my life anymore. And but something was missing. Some you know, I was winning awards, I was making great money, and I should have been happy, but inside I was miserable. I knew that there was a bigger version of myself or a bigger purpose to life. I just had not found it yet, and I had reached out after I finished the documentary. So I think it was 2017 I had reached out to my fixer, and we had stayed friends, and I reached out and said, So what's what's happening in Uganda? You know, I have this inner drive to grab my camera again and come to the northern part of Uganda and teach photography to young girls who've been affected by the Joseph Kony, you know, child soldiers. And he said, No, you you'll lose your money, they'll take the cameras and they'll sell them, and there's no electricity, there's no internet, because what if you really have something come to you, come to Uganda and teach the young women who are trying to be journalists. And I said, why would they need me? I'm not a journalist. I worked in film, not in media. And he said, because they're told when they don't have a camera, they don't know how to use it, they can't get work. They can't get paid work. They can't get a job. They might have a job. They don't get paid. And I was like, bingo, so that, you know, it kept on percolating. I went to write my mortgage broker exam, and I was sitting there waiting for the exam to start, and I looked at the clock and I looked at the paper, and I'm like, What am I doing here? This is not what I want. I put my pen down and I walked out. And that night, I three. I have insomnia. I woke my husband up at three o'clock in the morning, and he goes that. And I said, That's it. I'm going back to you again, and I'm going to teach photography. And he looked at me, and he said, I know you're crazy. Good luck with that. And he went back to bed, and I stayed up writing the business plan. And that was August 2017, and the next August, we were in Uganda doing our first test run with 15 girls, 15 borrowed cameras of all types, point and shoots, just to see. Is this? Some? Something that's needed. And two weeks after finishing the first workshop, this girl, jonita, writes to me and says, Amina, because of what you did, because of the training, because the camera you gave me. Now, keep in mind, those were just, you know, crappy point and shoots at the time, because I beg, bored and stole everything I could get my hands on. She had had a job for six months, but she was not getting paid, and she wrote to me to say I went to show my editor that I now own the camera and I could use it to accompany the stories I was writing. Today. She's now in a senior level position. Back then, she got put into a position where she was writing and getting published four times a week, and a year later, when the roof flew off the house, she was able to fix it, and she was able to move out on her own, pay for her mum to have a house and a TV, which is something that we take for granted, but is not normal, and she's doing really well. And that was 2018 and now up to this, we trained 164 young women with cameras in their hands, just in Uganda alone. Amazing and and it's that gender based barrier that, you know, we look at a camera and we're like, oh, I want that one, and I want that one, but this is this tool, you know, it's not the tool that you is how you use it is opening up gender quality and breaking down those gender based barriers. And, you know, getting these girls out of poverty.
Angela Nicholson
So it's one thing, having the idea,
Amina Mohamed
Yeah, it is.
Angela Nicholson
but another, making it the reality. So you said there was a year where you were basically setting it up and getting organised to go back out. How did you, how did you facilitate that?
Amina Mohamed
I was reaching out to people I had met in Uganda, namely venex, who was this fixer. And he was putting me in touch with, you know, organisations. They didn't want to partner up. They didn't know me. I didn't know them. I'm out, you know, I'm a expat who's trying to come back to Uganda. And so he helped me recruit the first 15, and we did this through Makerere University, which is the biggest journalism University in Uganda, who is now a partner. So in the first, you know, workshop, we had no partnerships. We had nothing. I took my savings. I paid for everything. But we did have a BBC journalist in that room, and she was one of our students. Imagine a BBC journalist in Uganda who had no photography experience, but was working. She's a go getter. And based on that and the experience that we were able to capture via video, and you know, back back then, back in 22,007 I was shooting film. Now it was digital, so we were able to turn something around, go back to Makerere and see, look at what we did for your students. You are teaching theoretical curriculum, and when they come out of school, they are not equipped with the skills or the tools to get a job. Now we can fit that gap, and they loved it, and so they were our first and still longest standing university partner. So we recruit our students for our year long programme. Out of these three university partners we have in Uganda now we have one in Tanzania. We're building up as we go. And so what we do is we look for young women who are in their two last years, or their third or fourth, or have graduated and can't find work simply because they're lacking the school the skills and the tools. And so it's not just about photography. I have to stress this that our year long curriculum goes into photography, ethical storytelling and vital business skills, skills like, how do I build a business plan if I want to go on on my own? How do I build a CV? How do I get on LinkedIn with a robust platform and learn how to network? How do I write properly? Right? It's incredible. How many of these girls come out and they don't even have basic computer skills or basic writing skills. So we teach them AI, we teach them Grammarly, everything, everything in the toolbox they're going to need to be successful once they leave cameras for girls in the back end of our year long training is a platform I built called the Online Learning Hub. When I couldn't get back to Uganda because COVID happened, I thought, Oh my God, all the work I've put in, and we're going towards charity status. I can't let this fail. So I sat down during COVID and I built an online learning hub in the back of our website. This houses all the video trainings we do. So every Friday, teach live on Zoom. And there are women who are coming across Africa from our in person groups, but also women who found us online, who have their own tools, who want to learn. And then we now involve women from the MENA region, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, anywhere women are. Are striving to have a voice, and are told your voice doesn't matter. We say, Yes, it does. And so we teach them how to use their voice, how to take photos, how to write stories, how to put themselves out there, not just on social media, but through newsletters, through podcasts. There's so many mediums in in storytelling, but we frame everything we do around an ethical storytelling framework. So on the side, I teach this to other groups, but I can't walk the walk on this side and not incorporate it into what we do at cameras for girls as well. Two reasons these girls, especially in Uganda or Tanzania or wherever you coming from, they are coming from cultures like in Uganda, for instance, 54 different languages, different tribes and different cultures across this vast country. Beautiful pearl of pearl of Africa. And so if you're in the north, you're not going to know anybody in the south or how they live, or the east or the west, and you have to learn how to navigate each other's cultures, be respectful. There's also, you know, Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, Protestant seventh day, invent like they're everything there. And so when they learn ethical storytelling, and they're getting in the field, and they're meeting other women or people in different communities. They're asking for consent. First of all, may I tell your story? How do you want to be referred? And how do you want me to tell your story like show you and this is where it's going to be seen and shared. So the person has that right to say no, right, because many times you'll walk around wanting to take photos, and you know, you'll see a hand come up like in front of their face. Don't take my photo because you haven't asked for consent. It's not, it's not street photography. This is, you know, documentary. So we teach them all of these, which also secondary point, it keeps them safe. There are women in a male space that are constantly told, You don't belong here. And so if they're walking around with a camera and they're not safe in the you know, and learning these these tools or these skills, they're at danger.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, it's it's nice to hear that you're teaching them the modern tools as well by including things like AI, because often, when you're in catch up mode in an area, there's a tendency to sort of teach something that's 10 years out of date, but you're bang up to the moment
Amina Mohamed
Exactly. Yeah, we're constantly looking at what's in the market, what are the needs in the skill, but we also do a lot of surveying with our students you know past, present and future, and say, what is it you need? What is missing in your country or in your area, or in East Africa or whatever that is not allowing you get jobs? Is it podcasting? Do you need to learn podcasting? So that many of them like, yes, I want to learn about podcasting, but it's cost prohibitive, so we go out and seek a partner that teaches podcasting and now that lives on our online learning hub. So any girl who comes by can learn podcasting, if they want to learn about AI and Grammarly and chatgpt and all these different things we're demonstrating, we're finding experts in that field who can come on and teach about that thing. We have people who come on and teach about mental health and sexual harassment. We incorporate this into our four day workshop, because it's not enough to just say, hey, in the three days we're in the classroom and the one day we're in the field, you're going to learn how to use your camera without touching the nasty parts of the media industry, which, number one, hold them back from entering it. Number two, keep them from entering it because they're told, Oh, if you don't sleep with me, I won't pay you. But third, and most importantly, teaching them how to advocate against it. So to give you an idea, two years ago, when we did this training in Tanzania, one of the women looked at me and said, We can't talk about this. And I turned back and I said, Who told you you can't talk about it? Who told you that? She said culture. And I said, Well, culture is wrong, and culture changes only when we stand up for ourselves. So two months after that, the same girl is on a bus, and she's accosted by the bus driver and a passenger late at night. She doesn't get off the bus and go home, she goes straight to the police station, files a report, gets the bus driver fired and the passenger charged and wins a settlement that she used to pay off her rest of her education, fantastic. And she, she wrote to me and said, If I had not sat in on that training and you had not told me to advocate, I would have been raped and worse and gone into so we really touch upon mental health and we keep on top of this. Because why? That's not in our direct mandate. It is you cannot walk around in a silo and ignore these things are happening, and you cannot not talk about these things, because then they continue to happen. So we we get in there, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly and and do the work that needs to be done so that we can change the girls lives, because it's not just a camera that's going to change their lives. It's everything that comes around it.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, it's the bigger picture. But when you hear stories like that, the hairs on the back of your neck must really stand up when you realise the impact.
Amina Mohamed
I get angry. I don't sleep. I get depressed, so I have a lot. I have to find ways to do a lot of mental health care, and I'm not good at that part, until I get pushed to the wall, which is, you know, where we are currently. Oh, okay, but, but it's, it's opening up the room for discussion and finding partners who can take that on for me, so that I'm not having to do everything. Because right now, I'm just a one person founder with you know, volunteers as a team, and to also have to deal with that would be so overwhelming on a daily basis that I would not be able to do everything else to lead this charity forward, and so I'm very lucky to have partners who come in on the back end who are experts in those areas, who can take that off me and and help the girls through these those these challenges, because they Never stop. Yeah, yeah.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. You major on photography. Do you do some filmmaking as well with the girls?
Amina Mohamed
Yeah, I know we offer them filmmaking camps through partnerships, but it's not a core part of our programme, simply because the tools you need for filmmaking versus photography are vastly different, more cost prohibitive. And while filmmaking is growing, we always say, You know what? Learn the basics. First, learn with a camera first, and then from there, we can find you our partners, who can take you down the filmmaking route we are looking at, do we divide our curriculum to meet this need? But you can't be everything to everyone, right? And so then, then you're talking about mission drift, and we don't want to be caught in that, because then we're going into an area that we're not equipped for, and it would take a lot more people to make that happen. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That makes absolute sense. In your experience, how would you say that storytelling by women differs from that of the male counterparts? Is it, does it come down to the subjects or their approach or something else?
I think it's both. You know, we look at the rural women, right? And they talk about gender based violence. They talk about losing children in childbirth because they couldn't get to the hospital in time because it's too far. They talk about having to be the ones who are keeping the homestead, or, you know, doing the agriculture and the farming, they talk about so many things. When males tell their story, they tell it in statistics. When women tell their story, they tell it with empathy and understanding, because they can walk in their shoes, or they can try to walk in their shoes, and they also represent women in a larger scope of what she's going through. And it's not just maybe in a Ugandan context, but in a global context. If you look at where women are today, still in 2025 trying to break that glass ceiling, and then you take it into, you know, the the rural or even the urban settings of a Ugandan or an African woman. It might not be the glass ceiling, but she's always trying to break some kind of ceiling. Yeah, and you know, we still haven't gone that far. And so if men are constantly being able to tell these stories and not bring proper context because they don't understand the lived experience. Where is the woman's voice? The women's voice is so vital in this space, and it will change gender equality if given the opportunity. And that's what we're trying to do at the end of the day, give them the opportunities to not only tell their stories, but the stories of their communities, their fellow women, and women at large, so we can change how we are viewed in this world and the opportunities we are given. Sorry, I get very passionate about it, but I came from an industry film where I was constantly told, You don't belong here, and I would have to go back, first as a woman and then a woman of colour. I. And I would constantly have to fight back and say, Well, I guess you found the first one who's going to remain right. I'll leave on my terms, not yours. And it's it's very disheartening when a girl writes to me and says they told me I couldn't do this because I'm a girl, and I said, I'm telling you can do this right now we have to be culturally sensitive because we don't want to put her at risk, but when she learns how to use her voice and advocate for herself, change does happen.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, you're talking about people actually saying you can't do this. But there are other subtler ways, not particularly subtle, but subtler ways, of saying the same thing, like never, ever seeing a woman doing a particular job. Never, ever seeing a woman of colour doing a particular job. And therefore, you get this idea that nobody said it isn't for you, but you just understand it isn't for you.
Amina Mohamed
Absolutely. And it was so funny, because I was in Uganda, and at the beginning of my trip, I meet this young man who says we were at an event, and he looks at me, and he says, I've never seen a girl with a camera before. And I just looked at him, and I was like, and I didn't know what to say, and I was like, do you live in a bubble? Like saying, Do you live in a bubble, right? But I was, and then I thought, had to think about it, yeah, this is why we're doing this. Because we want that, you know, that wording, or that that viewpoint, or that saying to change to 'Oh, I love seeing a woman with a camera', and people are always surprised when I tell them that most of my volunteers are men. They're African men, because they want to see change happen, and they love the fact that women are getting cameras telling stories of themselves and the women in their communities, but they're not just telling women's stories. They're telling men's stories with empathy and understanding and compassion.
Angela Nicholson
And when you're empowered, you're happier, you're making you know, you're changing things, you're creating things, and it's just nicer for the whole community, isn't it?
Amina Mohamed
So I'm going to change it a little bit. We don't use the word Empower, the ethical storytelling Empower means I'm giving you the power you don't have it. We use Inpower because they already have the power within. We're just coming by and helping them unlock it, not unlocking it for them, but helping them to unlock
Angela Nicholson
Yeah.
Amina Mohamed
So we all have the power within so I'm very careful about the words we use. We don't use words like empower. We don't use sir, we don't use beneficiary. And I'm on a goal to get that word in the dictionary one day. I really am.
Angela Nicholson
Okay.
Amina Mohamed
Inpower, yep.
Angela Nicholson
So inpower.
Amina Mohamed
Awesome.
Angela Nicholson
All right, I'm going to use that. Okay. So what are your goals for Cameras For Girls?
Amina Mohamed
Oh, we have many goals.
Angela Nicholson
I thought you might say that
Amina Mohamed
We just reached one of our major goals. We just got registered as a nonprofit in Uganda. So it happened while I was in Uganda. It's been two year process. So we're known there as cameras for girls training initiative Ltd, which is a mouthful, but I will continue to say cameras for girls Uganda. We want to grow to Kenya and South Africa in the next two years, we want to grow in Kenya. We'll partner with Aga Khan University, which is our hope. We're waiting for them to launch their undergraduate programme right now. They have a graduate programme so they don't need us. They'll need us in their undergrad and South Africa, we're going to swing it up a little bit. We're going to partner with a documentary photographer there who is embedded in the nonprofits and the NGOs there. And instead of us going through universities, we're going to work with young women who are already wanting to get into that space, train them up and then directly put them into work. Instead of this, it'll still be a year long programme, but it'll be a hybrid. They're working and and earning at the same time. And our third goal is to grow our job creation programme. So all of this, at the end of the day, starts with the idea of job creation for women. It's not about, hey, I'm going to put a camera in your hands like there's many amazing organisations out there who do this photography training in community. But we don't want it to stop there. We want it to be about job creation, our United Nations. SDG, goals are number one, no poverty, number five, gender equality, number eight, fair pay, equal opportunity. And so if we're not doing anything about job opportunities, what are we doing this for? What is the purpose of all of this? And so 80% of our graduates across the board are working, but we want to level it up a little bit. We want to pay them in US dollars. And so. I'll give you a quick example of how that's happening right now. There's an amazing woman named Tiffany Orner who came to us as a mentor last year, and she started mentoring Sharon, who was in our first cohort way back in 2018 Sharon is a mother, a single mom to three young kids, who has been striving to grow her digital marketing business. She was working for a newspaper they weren't paying her enough, but taking well advantage of her skills. And so we've been trying, over the years to get her into different trainings or to different companies, all without fail, because they don't want to see women in those industries. So here comes Tiffany as a mentor. She mentors Sharon to say, this is these are the things that you can do better. And then I launched my job creation programme. She sees it on the website, and she goes, What's that about? So I said, Well, I'm trying to pay our girls in US dollars. They have to have come through our training, have the skills and are working, but not necessarily earning a good income yet, but I can see that they have the drive. And she goes, What if I was to become a donor for Sharon specifically? Would you give the money to her? I said, You give me exactly what you want. I give it to Sharon. I'm the conduit. And so it's been three months, Sharon's getting 150 US dollars. She's writing a series of articles for Tiffany, who's promoting it on her LinkedIn called Letters from Uganda. It's about life of a woman living in Uganda. And Sharon is also doing some digital media for for Tiffany, that 150 is now putting her kids through school because earlier she didn't have the fees always consistently food on the table. She's saving 20% in a bank account that we dictated that she set up. So Shit happens. Rainy days come, she will be prepared and there will be no disruption in her life. And this is what we're trying to build. Because when you pay them in US dollars, the whole economy runs on US dollars, right? Everybody wants us dollars, even though there's the shilling, the Ugandan shilling, which is worth nothing at the end of the day, right? You know, 10,000 shillings to somebody is a lot of money, and yet that's 350 for us. Yeah. So imagine, and now, now imagine what that 150 can do. So this is what I'm really, really hopeful that we can build on.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, that's a fantastic start, and I don't doubt you're going to get there, with some help, I hope
Amina Mohamed
Yes.
Angela Nicholson
So okay, I think we should go to Six from SheClicks now, I've got 10 questions from SheClickers. Nothing to worry about. I would like you to answer six questions, please by picking numbers from one to 10. So if you could give me your first number?
Amina Mohamed
Two.
Angela Nicholson
Number two, what do you think is the most valuable skill girls learn during training with Cameras For Girls, and that question is from Carmen.
Amina Mohamed
Well, thank you, Carmen, confidence. Confidence Building honestly. When they walk into our training, they have no confidence in themselves, in they don't know me from Adam or Eve. They don't know what's going to happen when they see the first photograph that they took after we've because we do, you know, photography practice and review, and then they throw them in the field on the fourth day with an NGO partner to do a field practice session. When they see that first photo, they now they they understand they're capable all those people before them that told you don't belong here, you shouldn't be in media, you don't belong you don't deserve to be paid for this. You don't deserve a space here. They now know, okay, I'm starting to build my confidence, and I can do.
Angela Nicholson
Fantastic. Okay, can I have your second number, please?
Amina Mohamed
Four.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, now you've actually answered this earlier, but there might be some more to add to it. So how are the girls selected to participate in the programme? That's by Marie-Ange. You mentioned that they come from universities. But do you have more people wanting to come on the courses?
Amina Mohamed
Yeah, we have. We have a lot of women.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah, so how do you select them?
Amina Mohamed
So for our year long training, we select them only through university partners, because it is the gift of a camera, and we need to make sure that they have that basic understanding of journalism and communications, and so we can mould them into what they need to be to get jobs for the girls who come through LinkedIn, social media website, we tell them that if you have your own tool, or even these partner organisations, we have so many of them now that if they have their own tool, a smartphone or a camera, they can enter into the same train. Learning through our online learning hub, get the same skills everybody else is doing, including our six month mentorship programme, as long as they're doing the work. And so we are so proud that we've got over I think it's even more than 2000 women across the board and across like joining from everywhere, and to see them come on the trainings, some of them are very still shy to share their photos, but for those that do, they're getting jobs. They're getting out there. And we're even in refugee settlements in Uganda, where one of the girls who took the training through us last year is now working with a camera that we gifted her. It was just a point and shoot, but she took that, ran with it, and now is earning an income living in the refugee settlement.
Angela Nicholson
Oh, superb. Right, your third number please.
Amina Mohamed
One.
Angela Nicholson
Number one, what is your proudest moment in connection with cameras for girls? And that's another question from Carmen.
Amina Mohamed
Oh, I think, honestly, it was last year I applied. I'm a Vital Voices Fellow. Vital Voices is an organisation in the US that gives leadership training to women around the world. I was both in their initial leadership training and then the global summit, and I, from there, wrote a grant for Estee Lauder, and I was chosen out of four of us were chosen out of 60 applicants. I was the only North American to be awarded, and we got 50,000 and from there, we had a ceremony in New York, and ended up in vogue. And so I think, to date, that's one of my proudest moments, because I started thinking, I don't need I need leadership skills. Where am I going to find them? And walking through this whole journey with them and beyond and still continuing my journey, and it's just opened up so many doors. So yeah.
Angela Nicholson
Ieah. I mean, it's taken you in you in a direction you couldn't have predicted and brought some significant money.
Amina Mohamed
Yeah, but can I share a second one that I'm proud of?
Angela Nicholson
Go on then.
Amina Mohamed
It's the first time johnita wrote after, you know, thinking, is this Cameras for Girls thing, actually, you know, going to work, telling me that she got the job where I knew that we were onto something,
Angela Nicholson
Yeah.
Amina Mohamed
and up until then, I thought, Oh, well, that was a good exercise. But when, when we saw that, that power of that camera,
Angela Nicholson
Yeah.
Amina Mohamed
actually changed a life, which is what I envisioned from the beginning, that's that was my proudest.
Angela Nicholson
The plan works.
Amina Mohamed
Yes, very powerful.
Angela Nicholson
Okay, your fourth question, please.
Amina Mohamed
Let's go up a little bit. Seven.
Angela Nicholson
Seven. Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome, and how did you get through it? That question is from Liz.
Amina Mohamed
Every day.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah?
Amina Mohamed
Every day. Honestly, I've been trying very hard over the last two and a half years to grow my LinkedIn presence, because LinkedIn is where it's at. And, you know, every time I get, oh, you know, this is amazing, I'm like, Really, I keep on having to ask, really, right? But because, I because you have that thing about, oh, look at what these people are doing. These are amazing, and you never look within and yes, I have imposter syndrome. I think we all do a little bit. How I get over it is by, you know, deep breathing and tell me, telling myself, look, you gotten this far. Don't listen to the people. I still have, those naysayers, people who tell me that I'm a fake or, you know, I'm just doing this to make money. I don't even get paid to, you know, and and that hurts, because I'm not. I'm doing this to make a difference in the world. I'm not, you know, if I could be out there making money as a photographer or doing whatever, but I choose to do this, and so I have to not listen to the naysayers and remind myself that if this was easy, everybody would be doing it. Yeah, it's true. So that's how I get through it. My
Angela Nicholson
take on it is that most tasks, no matter how big, are a series, they're achieved through a series of small steps. Yeah, absolutely. And that's how you break it down and make it easy for yourself. But when you get to the end of it, you need to remember the big jump that you've just made, and not think about all those little steps that were easy, because actually, you've achieved a heck of a
Amina Mohamed
lot. Yeah, exactly. And you look at how far you've come, and you know, I keep on having to remind myself, wait a second, you only went full time two and a half years ago. This has been running since 2018 that you only went full time two and a half years ago. And when I say full time, I mean full time. 24/7
Angela Nicholson
I can imagine. Yeah,
Amina Mohamed
so I am proud. But you know, there's, there's still. That thing in the back of your head, or somebody who says something who can throw you off your whole game. So I say ignore them.
Angela Nicholson
Good. Good plan. Okay, so your penultimate number, please. This
Amina Mohamed
is my number five. Did we do 123? Let's do three.
Angela Nicholson
Number three. How difficult is it to source the funding and to find mentors? That's another question from Marie-Ange.
Amina Mohamed
Mentors are easy. Mentors are very easy. People love to give up their volunteer their time to mentor our girls. We have a six month mentorship programme, and what we do is we try to pair a girl. So if she wants to be a photographer, we go and find a photographer. If she wants to get into communications, we find her in somebody in communication, so we match her accordingly. But the funding is the difficult part. So we are a Canadian charity working in the international space, so we, for that reason, we can't get government funding, and then we constantly having to be writing grants. Which these, you know, the thing around that is one out of 10 is the is the norm. So you write 10 grants to get one, which is a lot of time to be writing grants. If I could hire somebody to write grants for me for the rest of my life, I would do it. Because right now I'm in a hell of a grant, and it's like, oh my God, and I wouldn't have gotten an Estee Lauder if I hadn't had that extra help, right? Because I'm not a grant writer, so you need to know your strengths. So that's why we built our monthly giving programme, because we need to do sustainability funding. Then we look at, are we going to do a Giving Tuesday again this year and get buried in the dust with everybody else. Hell no. And we don't do galas either, because to raise $1 it takes three to $5.03 US dollars and five Canadian dollars just to raise a buck. So it's not worth it when you're a small charity. But we are looking at bringing community together, right? Because when we bring community together, like last night. I did a zoom donor event this morning. I got so sorry I missed it. I mean, this happened, we had four people, but I treated it like we have 50, because I don't care. Each donor is special, right? And it comes down to donor stewardship and understanding their needs and their wants, and feeding into that. People tell me, I mean, I give because I can't go to Africa and make the difference that you're making. So you're my conduit. You're doing it for me. You're showing me how it can be done. People give for various reasons, right? But we have to look at fundraising, not as a eggs in one basket, we have to be like, I'm on an out of the box thinker. Last night, my and I said to on the call last night, they said to my donors, yeah, my crazy brain does some you know, you know stuff out of the box sometimes. And my donor said, Please don't let that crazy brain stop you, because look at what you're doing with it. So when it comes to fundraising, it is a constant like hamster wheel, and my hope one day is that funders will understand that nonprofits, charities, organisations, have a job they're trying to do. Don't stifle them with daunting fundraising applications or grant applications that they're never going to get, and they could spend better time, you know, making an impact or building a programme or doing something else or building their teams, than sitting and spending 100 hours on an application which is the average, which is crazy. Crazy.
Angela Nicholson
Is there no sort of standardised system? So you fill it out once, and then you can fire it off?
Amina Mohamed
No, no, because every donor is different, yeah, and it hasn't. It's been people are building it, but it hasn't come to the market yet, and so it would be great if there was.
Angela Nicholson
It would help.
Amina Mohamed
Yeah.
Angela Nicholson
Yeah. Okay, so we've come to your last question, your last number, please.
Amina Mohamed
Let's do number 10.
Angela Nicholson
Okay.
Amina Mohamed
10 out of 10.
Angela Nicholson
So I think this is a good one to finish on. I've been asked this by several SheClickers. How can photographers across the globe support Cameras For Girls?
Amina Mohamed
Oh, I love this question. Thank you. Donate your time. Donate your experience, right? If you we do our Friday live trainings. And as I mentioned, we have lots of live training sessions. We have guest speakers. We had Manoocher Deghati, who's an Iranian documentary storyteller. He's in his he's 75 he's shot everywhere. He came on last Friday and did a session with our girls talking about documentary storytelling and how he approaches storytelling. We've had photographers come on and teach about all types of photography, not just documentary. So if you have an interest in teaching for an hour, we would love. Have to have you, because they get bored of me and I get bored of being the teacher all the time, and it gives them a different aspect into the lens, right when they can see how photographers approach their passion for photography, and how they even started their story, about how they started, and where they are today, and you might not be where you want to be, but you're doing it. So, you know, kudos to that, because it's not an easy industry. I wish I had more time for my own photography. I used to do portraits. I used to do, you know, the only time I enjoy photography is when I'm out in different parts of the world, and I can get into documentary photography, otherwise it's birding for me, or nature photography for a stress relief. But otherwise I don't get to take my camera out unless I'm teaching, because I find a find it really challenging to get into that part of my brain now, because I'm just so busy giving and teaching all the time. Yeah, yeah. So if the short answer is, if you have a skill, if you know photography, if you want to teach something, whether it's technical or not, or just for the love of photography, please reach out to me. We'd love to have you.
Angela Nicholson
And how should they do that? To reach out to you?
Amina Mohamed
They can find us on our website, so www cameras for girls.org so that's F, O, R and or they can send me an email at Amina, at cameras for girls.org or find us on Instagram at cameras for girls or LinkedIn. That's where we're that's where we're hanging out. We're not on a fake book or anything else.
Angela Nicholson
Okey doke, great. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been really interesting hearing from you.
Amina Mohamed
Oh, this has been amazing. I really appreciate this, especially getting to speak to the photography community. And if I can leave one thing, we all have it in us as a skill, and whether you look globally or whether you look locally, there is somebody who wants to learn but may not have the opportunities. So give of yourself and your talents to an organisation, to a non profit, to a charity, to help them tell their story, or find a refugee or an immigrant who is struggling and wants to tell their story, and to help them tell it, because it really will make the world a more beautiful place through the lens.
Angela Nicholson
Okay, well, I think that's a great point to finish. So thank you so much again for joining me. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye. Bye.
Amina Mohamed
Thank you.
Angela Nicholson
Thanks for listening to this episode of the SheClicks Women in Photography Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Special thanks to everybody who sent in a question. You'll find links to Amina's website and social media channels in the show notes. I'll be back with another episode soon, so please subscribe to the show on your favourite podcast platform and tell all your friends and followers about it. You'll also find SheClicks on Facebook X, Instagram and YouTube if you search for sheclicksnet. So until next time, enjoy your photography.
