AfroLebenVoice - Our voices against discrimination

In the AfroLebenVoice project, members of Afro-Leben plus, the nationwide network of HIV-positive migrants, scientists and employees of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH) worked together on an equal footing from 2011 to 2014.

At the heart of the project was the participatory and creative Photovoice method. The name is derived from the word "voice". The idea behind it is that people from groups such as Afro-Leben plus, who have hardly been heard so far, find a voice and make themselves heard.

Basically, Photovoice works like this: People take photos of their lives, tell each other the stories "behind" the photos and, as a group, find out what they have in common and what needs to change.

In our case, we practitioners and academics supported the members of Afro-Leben plus in the project with advice, methodology and funding to record and reflect on their experiences of (multiple) stigmatization and discrimination in Germany. Their photos and stories answer two questions: What makes you sad in Germany? And what are your sources of strength? The second question was also important to us in order to avoid a one-sided focus on the negative.

With AfroLebenVoice, we want to stimulate processes of change:

• inwards: It was important to us to facilitate a respectful and constructive exchange among ourselves on the topic of discrimination and sources of strength. We wanted to activate and strengthen the resources, skills and knowledge of those involved.
• externally: We want to use the project results to raise public awareness of the realities of the participants' lives and thus contribute to reducing discrimination against migrants in Germany.

The results of the AfroLebenVoice project include various products that are available for download.