World Development
8 Years ago we developed a partnership with World Development and Relief. A branch of the methodist church that aims to tackle global poverty at its roots and create long-term systemic change. Initially, we would volunteer our time to this client, we believe in their goals and it is an exciting opportunity for us to document stories of hope and change.
Over our 8-year partnership we have visited 6 countries, capturing stories of change and documenting different cultures. As we have partnered with WDR for a long period, our skills have developed parallel to the growth of WDR. Additionally to our work with WDR, we also sat on the board for some time, this allowed us to see a direct correlation between our work and an increase in giving and engagement.
Most recently, we visited a partner of WDR called Kopila, in Nepal. Kopila works predominantly with women and members of the Dalit community, a lower-viewed class within their culture. Our work consisted of a full documentation of Kopila’s work through photography and a 20-minute documentary piece that explored the cultural issues and people affected by them.
For our photography, we developed an aesthetic that would reflect the people we met and their stories with importance. Capturing environmental portraits of people, showing rich colourful textures and placing people in their homes and workplaces. We felt this approach to portraiture would aid in storytelling, establishing a lot of information in one photo, catching the viewer’s eye and allowing their stories to follow through text. Additionally to the portraiture, we also created a bank of images that will be used for print and online content. We created a photo essay for each part of Kopila’s work, allowing the story of Kopila to be told entirely through imagery. They ranged from deep landscapes of the Annapurna mountain range to intimate pictures of a community cooking in a homestead.
The 20-minute documentary piece was the first time we had attempted a film of that length. Our approach was to tell the entire story of Kopila and the documentary will be viewed in each Methodist Church across Ireland. We captured establishing content, introducing the location of Nepal with drone footage and interviewed each person we spent time with. Our interviews took a conversational format, where Tim (the team Leader for World Development & Relief), would contextualise the Nepali culture for the viewer. We felt that with the difficulty of the subject, along with the cultural barrier; it was important to set a high pace for the film, using lots of footage, establishing the beauty of Nepal and showing the heart of its people. We’re proud of our work with WDR and more importantly, inspired by the people we meet and the work they do.