Lensational: Elevating the voices of women.

A selection of Lensational photographs to purchase for your home or as a gift this festive season. All photographs are by our network of women photographers from around the world, who come from underrepresented communities in the Global South. Your purchase contributes to their career, and to their success as a photographer. By purchasing Lensational photographs you are promoting diversity, and agency in the photography industry.

Accra, the centre for economic activities and capital of Ghana, is affected by the heat island effect. As cities like Accra grow, they hold heat in giant buildings and roads made of concrete, and suffer from rising temperatures. The city, though, has always inspired innovative thinking. This is one of the few residential buildings with greenery I have come across. Aside from helping mitigate rising temperatures, buildings like this also improve wellbeing.

The impacts of climate change such as rising temperatures, declining rainfall totals and increased variability, high incidence of weather extremes and disasters, has led young girls in rural communities in Northern Ghana, to migrate to the city, Tamale, to find greener pastures, especially those whose parents rely solely on farming during the rainy season. The change is attributed to hotter temperatures that lead to droughts, resulting in a change of farming seasons. This, for the young girls and their families, leaves them in poverty since they would be struggling to feed. The majority of the inhabitants of Yepalsi, a farming community in the Savelugu Municipality of the Northern region of Ghana, who solely rely on agriculture have to find an alternative way of surviving due to the long dry season leading to poverty and lack of food and causing them to relocate and migrate from their rural communities to urban centers. Because of climate change, and its devastating effects on sustainable livelihoods, a lot of people, mostly; vulnerable young girls, are forced to move from their initial homes for greener pastures outside their villages to the cities, such as Tamale. The majority of rural dwellers, especially the girls in Yepalsi, support their parents who are into agricultural production, where they rely solely on rainfall for farming. According to some community members in Yepalsi, a farming community in the Savelugu Municipality of the Northern Region, climate change has increased poverty levels among the people. This is due to loss of farm produce, particularly perishables, during the dry season. They are forced to throw away spoiled ones when they become unacceptable for human consumption, leading to a reduction in income generation. They also noted that water bodies dry up during the dry season, a situation that does not only impact humans negatively, but also both domestic and wild animals. In dealing with the impacts of climate change, the people said they temporarily venture into other businesses such as baking during the dry season, to sustain their livelihood. Despite venturing into these businesses, they still struggle to survive, forcing them to migrate to the cities to find menial jobs to survive.

Photography is an important tool for creating memory and remembering history. Yam festival in Ho, Ghana. Yam is an important part of agricultural life in Ghana, forming a significant part of the diet of multiple West African countries. It is particularly demanding for crops to grow, requiring patience and diligence. Each year, the Yam Festival provides an opportunity to thank God and the ancestors for the harvest, and also to celebrate the Asogli people's shared history through a parade with traditional clothing, dancing, music and celebration.

This is a series of images taken amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, showing how photography can be used as therapy during self-isolation.

In Gataka, there are about one hundred and eight children living with disabilities. This only accounts for the data collected from select homes and schools. The plight of children - and persons with special needs - is a global issue. According to UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report , less than 10% of countries have laws that help ensure full inclusion in education. The report highlights the chronic lack of quality data on those left behind, including children with special needs, stating that almost half of low- and middle-income countries don’t collect enough education data about the latter. In Gataka, we are working to change these facts by bringing to the light the stories of persons living with disabilities and the experience for their caregivers.

In Kenya, the Nairobi river, which passes through the country’s capital city, and is used by millions daily for domestic and farming activities, has been an increasing cause for concern. This is because the capital city’s waterway has become one of the most polluted rivers in the world, threatening the livelihoods and health of millions who depend on it. The situation is especially grave in informal settlements, like Mathare. Here, one of the Nairobi river basin tributaries passes through, called the Mathare river. It has become a huge dumping ground for all sorts of waste, leading to high levels of industrial contamination.

Just south of the Amboseli National park near the border of Kenya and Tanzania is a small village called Esiteti. Many of the communities that live here lead a nomadic life, but unlike most of the natives that live near them, these families live here merely by circumstance. After being evicted from one place to another by the National Wildlife service for fear of occupying wildlife corridors, this small community has settled for this area that seemed like the most sustainable for them and their livestock, despite the distance from many amenities. Added to the fact that they are still constantly confronted with the issue of their current settlement also being a wildlife corridor which does not guarantee them a permanent settlement in this area, the reception from neighboring natives has not always been welcoming leading them to lead a quite isolated life. But even more compelling, is the day-to-day lives of the girls and women of Esiteti who being Maasai assume. Over the past 1 and half years we have spent time training and equipping these women in photography skills so they could document the impact of living with wildlife being that they are tasked with most if not all domestic and care responsibilities of the homestead but what we got was raw unedited insights into their day to day lives. Here are their stories

This gallery celebrates women's strength, work, bravery, and joy as a collection of images of women, by women, from around the world.

This is a collection of stories and images documented by a group of women from a small village in Amboseli, Kenya called Esiteti near the border of Kenya and Tanzania. The area is predominately occupied by Maasai and the women who major mostly in housekeeping grazing and running small house-run business, share what their day to day lives look like through these images.