Making a living photo archive of children’s lives around the world
ZIGZAGWEB is a simple concept - children from the ages of 5 to 11 are facilitated to document their lives with photographs of central lifeworld themes - home, family, play, etc. These images are then posted on a website for others to view.
With this idea we seek to:
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build tolerance across borders, cultures and faiths by focusing on unifying themes -
build children’s self-esteem by taking part in a high profile project and learning new skills
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provide a simple creative life skills methodology for children, teachers and families
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enable digital media and web literacy and safety awareness amongst children
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provide a living photo archive of children’s experience for use by teachers as a resource
Local and global
The focus of ZIGZAGWEB is both local and global. It aims to build common ground within and beyond borders - the dream is to have children from every country, every refugee settlement, every income group, every culture and race represented here but at least one country and one child is enough to start to build unity and tolerance.
Low tech
The ZIGZAGWEB website is low tech to enable people to access it in the least internet equipped places. There is no flash software, no animations, no fancy HTML coding. The homepage is small and visible within one screen on the smallest computer.
Photography projects
With 100% child generated content in the form of digital pictures taken by children on a basic consumer digital camera, the driving force behind ZIGZAGWEB is a project methodology that can be used in schools and child development agencies. Instead of simply instructing children to take pictures of their lives, this process is built into a creative project set-up or led by a ZIGZAGWEB facilitator using a toolkit that can be used again by teachers and child carers in the future.
This toolkit explains:
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the structure and framework of a ZIGZAGWEB project
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the creative process used in the project workshops
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the photographic processes
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the technical requirements for saving, storing and distributing the digital photos
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helpful suggestions and tips on how to use the web content in new creative projects.
Children’s rights
The projects methodology and website content are all monitored and moderated by child experts and run in accordance with the UN Convention On The Rights of the Child. We only show pictures that are uploaded by our core team and taken in an authorized ZIGZAGWEB project. See our policy.
How to get started
ZIGZAGWEB is a not for profit initiative. It is led by two partners in the UK (The Forge) and Vietnam (ensemble creative training and development) who have access to skilled facilitators in four continents. We welcome dialogue with you on your needs and requirements and how you would like to proceed. Each ZIGZAGWEB project can be with 3 to 30 children depending on time and access but this can be adjusted according to your needs and aims.
The cost
We welcome dialogue with you on fundraising for a project in your country, school, organization or agency. The main cost factors are travel to your country by one of our facilitators, one simple digital camera with media card (that are left with you after the project is finished), the facilitator’s fee and living costs in your country plus an administrative charge that goes towards web hosting, uploading and our overheads.