At the Face-to-Face Project, they believe the best way to break the cycle of poverty is to help communities rely on themselves. THey provide the most impoverished communities in Malawi and Cambodia with the tools and resources they need to break the cycle of poverty.
They work in communities that are facing food shortages and health crises. They work with all members of the community, empowering them to join us in finding long-term sustainable solutions to the issues they face.
The Face-to-Face Project (F2F) began as The Face-to-Face AIDS Project in 2003 as part of a Harvard Medical School initiative to document the AIDS pandemic in South Africa. They photographed, filmed, and interviewed scores of people, many now deceased, and presented their life stories in the U.S. to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic. To this end, they exhibited their AIDS PhotoMosaics and gave presentations at numerous universities, museums and international conferences.
Still, they wanted to do more to help the people who’d entrusted us with their stories. We also felt their donors wanted to support projects that directly benefited the people whose stories had so moved them.
And so F2F evolved into a charity that uses its documentary experiences to reveal local economic, cultural, and societal realities, and then build on-the-ground programs that local communities take ownership of. In 2006, they moved their focus to Malawi, and added Cambodia in 2007; both places are among the most impoverished, disease-stricken countries in their respective areas. They believe that working in these similar yet very different nations informs their programming in ways that can be unique and forward-thinking. We bring together the best of their experiences in both countries to come up with programs that often challenge established methods of charity.
