Arlette Bashizi
From: Goma, DRC

I am a woman in my twenties who lives in Kasika, one of the 18 neighborhoods of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cheerful, courageous, polite, nice, and gifted with an open mind, I have loved communication from a young age. For me, communication is the foundation for everything that happens in the world. Over several years I continued to develop my knowledge of communication, but it became necessary for me to specialise in a precise field of communications. In this manner, beginning in July 2018, I became interested in photography; with every passing day I wanted to learn more, not to photograph models but to inform the entire world through my images of the stories and reality of life in my county, in my city. I’m currently training at Lens on Life/CAMME to be a photography professional.

Apart from photography, I also support female empowerment and am determined to inspire young women of my generation and motivate them to have dreams and be capable of achieving them. From this comes my project to unite Congolese women in order to connect them to the world, allow them to take control of their lives, and become stakeholders rather than victims. I also want to pursue university studies of law in order to defend women.