CC Launches Affiliate Project Grants

Meryl Mohan, June 13th, 2013

Judy van der Velden / CC BY-NC-ND






One Response to “CC Launches Affiliate Project Grants”

  1. Would a photo journalism project qualify for this project? I am working on a project “Anti-Bullying”.

    Bullying is a seed that grows like weeds in the psyche of everyone who experience or witness it. The bully is always someone to be feared and loathed; but, like any abuser, they are acting out from their own experience as a victim. A child who beats up a kid at school has experienced some form abuse. It could be they are watching their parents hit each other, or they are being abused in some manner themselves. Perhaps the child is reacting to what they see on TV, video games, or irresponsible media that is so prevalent these days. Abuse and bullying are cycles that must be addressed decisively and quickly to be broken. Bullying can manifest itself differently in each person. In some it maybe how they handle relationships, which may include how one treats animals or someone else’s belongings. It can also manifest itself in how one interacts with other racial groups, sexualities, or anyone different than themselves. It is a cry for love, understanding, and acknowledgement. The bully, in order to prevent unwanted attention on their own perceived shortcomings, will do their very best to point out others’ shortcomings, and make people perceive them as bad, wrong, etc. This is what I want to showcase in my anti-bullying editorial photography project. I want to “point the finger at the bully” to help break the cycle.

    My project will come at the subject of Bullying from many different angles. First it will I will be asking those who have been bullied sit before my camera to be photographed in situations similar to those they had to face as victims in the past. I will capture them with my camera and ask them what was it like to be bullied? What words, what phrases, etc did you hear? What was it that made you feel bullied?

    Second I will be taking those words and descriptions and he photos. Than with the help of the subject, I will casting them across a wall either brick/white/ or a photo of an object (bible, play ground etc).

    Third I will bring the first two steps together with in my computer graphically to develop an educational journalistic photo which combat this growing problem. Not only providing a graphic photo which can be used to educate others, but my project will also help the victims heal from their past bullying by helping educating others.

    Bullying is like a dirty little secret that needs to be exposed and the victims — both the bully and the bullied — need to know that there is help out there for them. I firmly believe that parents, schools and even businesses need to all do their part. However, the first step in this battle against bullying is sensitivity training, and education on what bullying is.

    Too many children have been lost, too much pain has been inflicted and not enough is done to stop it. From the parents fighting and hitting each other, to the kids in school that either are bullying or enabling bullying, to the kid pulling the butterfly’s wings off and kicking the dog, the cycle begins. It is time to do something to stop that circle give both the bully and the bullied a voice. Let them know there is a way that leads to love, acceptance, and peace. This is what I want to do with my project; I want to end the cycle of bullying and abuse. I want to break the circle and straighten the line out through education and visual art!


    Trinton “TrinityHawk” Garrett