On a warm summer day staff from Akron Children’s, Keep Akron Beautiful and students from Akron Public Schools took to the streets around Findley CLC to clean up the community.
This came after Akron Public School students spent the spring taking pictures in the community and developed posters to showcase their photos and descriptions from the Photo Voice Project. The Photo Voice Project gave students digital cameras to express and explore their perspectives on what health care looks like in their community, including some of the barriers faced while attempting to achieve optimal health. 
It aims to amplify the voices of students who may not traditionally have the power, opportunity, or audience to share their perspectives.
Many of the students’ photos showed litter and areas of disrepair in their communities.
“We wanted to be able to do something to show the students that their work was not in vain,” said Dr. Thomas Jefferson, education program liaison, diversity, equity and inclusion at Akron Children’s.
Akron Children’s staff partnered with Keep Akron Beautiful and Akron Children’s Viking Scholar interns, which included some Photovoice Project participants, to find the areas of greatest clean up need in the community. The Akron Children’s Viking Scholar interns are students from North High School who spent eight weeks working in various areas of the hospital.
“We got some amazing pictures from the students. Their pictures showed everything from litter around the schools and parks to unsafe, boarded up houses and buildings,” said Dr. Andrea Sims, Akron Children’s pediatrician and Health Equity Coordinator. “We wanted to figure out a way to help them and ensure that they know their voices are important. So, we decided to do this cleanup project since a majority of the photographs were about our schools and the unsafe area around them.”
In addition to cleaning the areas around Findley CLC, students and staff took on a project at North High School, helping to clean areas inside and outside of the school.
After seeing the students’ presentations, Bernett L. Williams, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer and vice president external initiatives at Akron Children’s, felt moved to address some of the students’ concerns.
“We had to do something [the presentations] could not be the end of it. They told us what the challenges are in their neighborhood, and we could not not address anything. So, my proposition to our team was now what can we do?”
Bipika Limbu, a Viking Scholar and 12th grade student at North High School, participated in the Photovoice project. Her photo poster, called “Cigarettes for Everyone” featured a pile of cigarette butts located five minutes from her school.
She came to the clean-up event to make a difference.
“It makes me feel like my voice was heard,” she said. “We went out in the cold to take these pictures. Sometimes it was raining, and it was snowing, but all of us went out to take several pictures to show that our community does need this help.”
She continued: “Seeing this [event] makes me really happy, because it is actually working out. It’s like our posters are coming to life. I’m very happy. I’m proud of my community.”
“That’s what this is about,” Williams said of helping the students feel heard. “Had we ended it with ‘Well, you did your posters that was nice.’ I know if I were a student I would feel like ‘Well, yeah, but nothing’s changing.’ We can’t change everything. But I think this is also a way to demonstrate to our students that every small act can make a difference.”
Williams hopes to continue to do the Photovoice Project in future years, and to take action after the presentations, if appropriate.
Keep Akron Beautiful is a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive litter prevention, recycling promotion and beautification programs for the City of Akron. If you see litter on a public street or park, call Keep Akron Beautiful at 330-375-2116 for clean-up. If you see littered vacant lots or personal property, call Akron city customer service at 330-375-2311.
