Photography Without Borders is preparing to send six students to Puerto Rico on a youth summer storytelling trip called “Seguimos Aquí — Puerto Rico, Our Home.”
The trip, developed in partnership with Taller Puertorriqueño, will give students the chance to document the island, photograph artists, and connect with their culture. The project will culminate in an exhibition and film screening in Philadelphia during the U.S. 250th anniversary year.
The trip is being organized in part by Frenchy Williams, a member of Photography Without Borders’ board of directors who came up through the program herself.
“This organization very much raised me and was a key part in my development as an artist and also just like as a person,” Williams said. “It really taught me a lot of those soft skills that I don’t think I otherwise would have gotten until like maybe post high school, working a couple of jobs.”
With the trip approaching in June, PWB has raised more than $23,000 of its $30,000 goal. The funds will cover travel, programming, and the culminating exhibition and film screening in Philadelphia.
Kensington Voice first profiled Photography Without Borders in 2023, when founder Tony Rocco described the organization’s mission of giving young people a way to share images of hope from their neighborhoods. PWB started in 2009 as an after-school photo club at John B. Stetson School, where Rocco was a teacher. The nonprofit now runs free photography programs for students in grades 5 through 12 at seven sites across North Philadelphia.
Most of PWB’s students are Puerto Rican or of other Hispanic descent. Programs are free, meet twice a week, and include both after-school and summer sessions. Students take field trips in and outside of the country, and the organization provides free equipment, including pinhole and film cameras, digital cameras, and donated laptops, along with a darkroom and a drying space for prints.
Williams said students who are considering joining should expect to start at the beginning and work as part of a group.
“You’re going to learn what your materials are, you’re going to learn what’s in front of you,” Williams said. “It’s also about coming in together and being okay with knowing that you are going to be in a cohort. You’re not working alone, you’re not by yourself.”
Students display their work in two annual exhibits. Their photography has been featured in Motivos Magazine, a bilingual youth publication, and some students have been interviewed by CBS and Telemundo about their work.
Jasmine Silva-Sanchez has been a student with PWB for about eight years. She came to the Taller Puertorriqueño location after the pandemic to experiment with new forms of photography and figure out who she was as an artist. She said PWB pushed her to think about the meaning behind the photos she chose.
“For the longest time, I really couldn’t directly say, okay, what photo? Where am I going with this photo?” Silva-Sanchez said. “I like it. What do I like about it? That’s kind of the point of the program, is to encourage, well, what story are you telling with the photos that you take? How are you dealing with the things that are going on now?”
Miguel Rosa, who has been a student at PWB for four years, said he wasn’t confident in his abilities when he joined.
“I think for the longest time, I’ve been very kind of insecure,” Rosa said. “I don’t know, I just didn’t know a lot about myself or what I was good at or anything.”
Rosa said staff members Shoshanna Wiesner, Adam Cooper-Tein, and Rocco helped him find value in his work. Today, he is the designer behind PWB’s logo and its iterations.
PWB also connects students to jobs in photography and videography, and helps students who want to attend college with their applications.
To learn more about Photography Without Borders, visit photographywithoutborders.org. To donate to the Puerto Rico trip, click here.
