Jennifer Cash's Perspective

Jessica and I were out on a photo shoot, learning how to use our cameras. We were experimenting with light and shadow in front of a cafe on Washington Street. It is not important to know which of us is a workshop volunteer and which of us is homeless. We are both engaging in a process of learning and teaching.

As a consultant for The Language of Light workshop, it was important for me to approach this project as a learner in addition to being a teacher, based on the pioneering work in community empowerment done by the late Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire.

It is the integration of community and academic perspectives that makes this work so valuable and exciting. I hope we have been able to convey the strengths and needs of Ann Arbor's homeless community and affect positive changes at the individual, community and policy levels.

Jennifer Cash is a graduate student working with U-M Public Health professor Caroline Wang; the two are currently writing a piece about The Language of Light workshop to be published in a prestigious academic journal soon. Wang is the editor of Visual Voices, a stunning, full-color book illustrating her "Photovoice" work with women in rural China who documented their lives to promote the need for better education of girls. The book is available at Shaman Drum, and proceeds go to scholarships for girls in that province. For more information about adapting the "Photovoice" technique to other projects, contact Wang at the U-M School of Public Health at 764-9494.