Help Photographer Evans Ahorsu from Ghana Fulfil Scholarship Invitation to NY

Evans Ahorsu is a talented photographer friend of mine who I have known since 2017, mostly through his voluntary work within Northern Ghana. I have seen several of his achievements and I also own a couple of his photographs as I truly believe in his talent and his focus on humanitarian issues. Evans is a giver and has been putting personal opportunities aside for changes he’d like to see within his community. He recently received a scholarship for a one year certificate program in Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism from the International Center of Photography in New York through the Director’s Fellowship and is worried that he might not make it due to him not having enough funds to support his accommodation and daily costs. Having lived in Ghana myself, I understand the struggles he is facing in gathering such funds which seems to be an impossible mission. I believe that through international support from those who believe he deserves such an opportunity at furthering his career, it can be possible. Besides the scholarship grant, he was also offered a job which will enable him to get by during his time there but accommodation and travel expenses are not included.

As a photographer who grew up in the Volta Region and worked mainly in rural communities in the ‘Northern Regions’ of Ghana, regions which are known to be the poorest in the country, he struggled to understand why underdevelopment was so prevalent in these communities and even access to basic amenities such as water, shelter, and clothing was lacking, even though they had a very energetic and youthful population as well as vast land to engage in commercial agriculture to meet their needs. All he could basically understand was that they were poor; he remembers feeling frustrated, helpless, and sad yet lacking the ability to help. This got him to start taking up volunteering opportunities to learn skills in handling community problems. The desire to be a change-maker led him to do volunteer work for a number of organizations. As a volunteer photographer and videographer for iHelp Africa, an NGO, he helped develop the concept and content for their 1Girl1Box Project, a project which provides teenage girls in deprived communities with sanitary pads in order to reduce absenteeism from school. Access to a pad means many of these young girls will stay in and continue school, ensuring a brighter future for their whole family. One girl One box has constantly supplied over 1,000 girls in more than 20 communities with sanitary products through online fundraisers using some of his landscape and portrait pictures as perks. Aside from this, he has also used his images for a book drive for Future for Africa, an NGO based in the north, and helped in training over 70 young people in Digital Media Skills.

His vision is to use his camera to open up a previously unexplored space, a world of new connections, new opportunities, new beginnings, and, most importantly, new stories. This vision can only bear fruit if he attends the Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism at ICP in New York, of which he was awarded the prestigious Mary Ellen Mark Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship will not only offer him the opportunity to acquire cutting-edge training, skills and technical knowledge required for him to advance in the complex and ever-changing world of visual storytelling, but it would also give him, in addition to knowledge of international development, a network of strong and lasting relationships with his teachers and fellow students which will lead to creating collaborative impactful stories to reach out to the right niches. His long-term goal is to create a career path as a community developer and a change-maker through photography. If you’d like to support Evans reach this goal, he’d be eternally grateful. We will update you with the latest in him reaching this goal along the way to his success, of which you’d be part of.

Biography of the artist: https://evans-ahorsu.com/pages/biography
Image choice for photo campaign may be found here: https://evans-ahorsu.com/pages/crowdfunding-appeal... Please notify which image you'd like when making donation of photo print reward you choose.