As part of the column ‘Women by Women: A Shared Vision’ created to expand and develop the theme chosen for our Global open call, we sat down with Lydia Kibandi, CEO at Lensational, a non-profit enterprise elevating women s voices. Kibandi discussed with us about the power of art in creating change and how photography can be a vehicle for culture expanding orisons for girls and women. Lensational aims to give underrepresented individuals a voice by letting them narrate their own stories in an unfiltered way through their own gaze. Kibandi told us about her belief in changing the industry from within, the power of interconnection, and the initiatives in store for the next year.
How did your project come to life? What inspired its inception?
Lensational was founded by Bonnie Chiu, who has always believed in the power of art to create change. The idea first took shape when she visited Turkey and, despite a language barrier, connected with local girls curious about her camera. She realised then how photography could cross boundaries and give women a voice.
Bonnie’s inspiration also came from her own grandmother, an Indonesian refugee who never learned to read or write but expressed herself through photographing the orchids she loved. Seeing this, Bonnie understood that photography could empower women to tell their own stories and that insight became the foundation of Lensational, which officially launched on International Women’s Day in 2013.
What does it mean to you to create space for underrepresented women within the creative industry?
For us, it’s primarily about ensuring that women who have historically been overlooked or marginalised can tell their own stories and represent themselves authentically. It’s about putting the tools and skills for photography storytelling in the hands of those whose experiences have too often been filtered through other people’s lenses both literally, in photography, and figuratively, in how their lives and issues are portrayed. Ultimately, it’s about disrupting the industry and shifting the narrative so these women are not just subjects, but active participants in how their stories are tools and storytellers of their own lives.
How does the photography training that you offer work?
We begin by identifying the women who will participate in our programs, working with local organisations that already run initiatives for communities and especially girls and women we want to reach.These programs usually focus on a specific issue that affects these women, such as climate change. Funders and partners who financially support the program also play a key role in shaping the focus. Often, these are think tanks or organisations conducting research in those areas and help to identify gaps where our training can have the most impact in informing the general public and most importantly policy makers.
Next, we work with those partners to select the trainers and participants/ trainees. While the trainers are often local photojournalists, being a photojournalist alone doesn’t make someone a trainer. We have a very specific approach to teaching photography that we’ve developed over the past few years, and we spend time familiarising the selected trainers with this approach so they can guide participants effectively through the program.
Over four to six months, trainers use this method to teach photography, storytelling, and concepts related to the theme or issue at hand. The training is designed so that participants develop skills while applying them to creating their own photo projects on the issue. At the end, these projects are used to engage policymakers or support advocacy, giving the women a platform to share their experiences directly.
Could you tell us more about the Empower Her Lens Fund?
The Empower Her Lens Fund is an initiative we launched to mobilise financial resources from individuals and organisations to support emerging photographers who have participated in our programs. As the name suggests, it’s about “empowering their lens”, putting resources behind the skills they have gained through our training so they can continue to grow. The fund provides financial backing to cover the costs of pursuing their own personal photo projects.
The fund serves multiple purposes: it allows participants to continue developing their photography and storytelling skills, create opportunities for income, and keep highlighting the issues they explored in their initial projects. For example, if a participant documented a drought in 2022 and solutions or responses have since emerged, the fund gives her the opportunity to pitch a follow-up project to amplify those solutions. In addition to covering costs, the fund also provides technical support from our team to help these photographers bring their projects to life successfully.
The initiative also aims to disrupt the traditional idea of philanthropy, which is often seen as the domain of the very wealthy. Here, individuals can contribute in ways that are meaningful for them even smaller amounts, like $250, $500, can make a real difference. That could be enough to commission one photographer for a small assignment or support a larger project, depending on the contribution. Donors can also receive recognition through a byline and access to the images produced, giving them a tangible connection to the work they’ve supported.
Thus far, we have already seen individuals and small businesses contribute a percentage of their income to the fund, and this support has enabled our photographers to take on assignments exploring important issues—such as culture, the connection between climate and community resilience. See more here.
Have there been any unexpected or surprising outcomes from your work that continue to resonate with you?
One of the most surprising outcomes of our work has been how the stories women shared through our programs revealed consistent insights around specific issues, even when we weren’t intentionally focusing on them. For a long time, our training programs were designed primarily to give underrepresented women the tools to tell their own stories and express themselves. We didn’t have a keen focus on policy.
Over time, however, certain themes started emerging repeatedly, climate change being a major one. This made us realise that the insights coming from the women themselves had the potential to do more than tell a story they could inform action and influence change. We began thinking about how to create platforms where these stories could reach policymakers, so that the issues women were raising weren’t just documented, but could actually drive solutions.
What’s been especially rewarding is seeing how this approach aligned with the work of other organisations and think tanks that were also exploring ways to bridge the gap between communities and policymakers. It showed us that the direction we had started moving in was meaningful and necessary, and it’s continued to grow in importance over time.
A concrete example of this is our initiative together with NAP Global network, Envisioning Resilience, which is a photography initiative that equips women from communities most affected by climate change with photography and storytelling tools to show what resilience really looks like from their own perspective. These stories then become a platform for dialogue with policymakers and decision-makers, ensuring that women’s lived realities inform adaptation and climate strategies.
You also run many programmes: what does 2026 have in store?
In 2026, we’re looking to deepen the work we’re already doing and focus on a few key areas.
One area is the platforms through which women’s stories can drive real change. We’re piloting ways to support policymakers in connecting the insights and narratives from these stories directly with ongoing policy processes, so the stories can inform decisions in a tangible, actionable way.
Another area is bringing our training programs into schools, especially for girls who are at risk of not finishing their formal education. The idea is that if something disrupts their schooling, the skills and tools they’ve gained through our program can give them resources for income-generating opportunities, storytelling, and engaging with their communities.
Since everything we do at PhotoVogue is rooted in empowerment and collaboration with entities that share our values, is there a women-focused organisation you’d like to spotlight or give a shout-out to?
There are two that I would like to spotlight. GirlsCARE in Jamaica and SASAL in Kenya.
These organisations are incredibly grounded in the lives of the women and girls they work with. Without strong, trusted partners like them, it would be much harder for us to reach communities and do the work we do. GirlsCARE mentors young women across the Caribbean, helping them become climate-justice advocates, while SASAL works with pastoralist and arid-land communities in Kenya, centring women in climate resilience and sustainable livelihood programs.
