Shoot Nations project culminates in India

The patron of the exhibition was Mr Raghu Rai, eminent photographer and 'Padmashree' awarded for his coverage of the Bhopal disaster in 1984.

Mr Rai spoke of the importance of listening to young people and their viewpoints, and the importance of the camera as a medium for capturing and documenting social issues.

Alongside the exhibition, two workshops were held: one for local Plan and partner NGO facilitators and one for 65 young people from Delhi.

This facilitator workshop shared the Shoot Nations methodology of communication through a camera lens, increasing young people's agency and media literacy.

The young people's workshop focused on sending teams of young people out onto the streets of Delhi to photograph the issues as they saw them, then communicating to the rest of the group why their photograph is important and how they can disseminate it to bring about change.

India has a strong heritage of photo journalism. Plan supports many youth projects each year that encourage young people to communicate through photography such as the Graphs India project.

There is a large scale social audit taking place in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, with children documenting what has changed within their communities.

The exhibition of 100 images from the project remained in situ at the Goethe Institute for five days but can now can now be accessed online at www.shootnations.org.

A slideshow of the India leg of the tour can be found here

A set of curriculum-mapped lesson plans accompany this project to help UK students understand the power of photography and its ability to create social change.

There is also a wealth of multimedia resources available in the Plan-ed resource centre.

Plan hopes Shoot Nations will be back in 2008 to focus on children in a changing climate.