Digital Democracy

Indianapolis, IN: Wednesday, August 10th, the students of Project Einstein Indianapolis will have an audience of hundreds as visitors to the Indianapolis City Market’s weekly farmer’s market will be able to view the work of young photographers, who are primarily refugees from Burma/Myanmar. Tomorrow’s exhibit is the result of a year-long photo training with students [...]

Its an honor to be invited to speak at the White House . Its especially exciting to see an administration that understands the power of youth and works to pull in our voices. The White House was pulling together 20 “awesome” youth leaders to discuss the future of international foreign aid. The conversation was between [...]

13 Kids + 4 Cameras = Project Einstein South Africa We’re proud to announce the launch of our brand new book created by the Project Einstein South Africa youth. It’s designed by Smitha Alampur who is currently in South Africa delivering the books to the children and with writing help from our intern Ellen Knuti. [...]

26.3 miles. That’s the distance I’ve been driving every day this past week to work with two communities of refugee youth living on opposite sides of town in Indianapolis, Indiana. Many of their experiences – moving to a new country, resettling in the US, adapting to life at an Indianapolis high school – are quite [...]

In this episode of DdTv venture back with us to January 2008 to see the origins of Project Einstein. Mark and Emily spend several days working with youth in Kutupalong refugee camp in Southern Bangladesh, home to thousands of Rohingya refugees from Burma. Stateless, the Rohingya, a muslim ethnic group from Western Burma have fled [...]

Project Einstein started as photo training with a group of youth in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, so named by one of the participants because “Einstein was a refugee but could still do great things.” We’ve since expanded the project, working with youth in Pretoria, South Africa, a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand, and the [...]

Mark and Emily travel to Mae La refugee camp in Northern Thailand to launch our digital penpal program Project Einstein with Burmese youth. Students from the Leadership Management Training College, never having held a camera before, are taught the fundamentals of digital photography, including composition and editing, and choose themes from their lives to document [...]

Digital Democracy is delighted to announce that we have been awarded a grant from the Clowes Fund of Indianapolis, Indiana. The grant will support the launch of Project Einstein Indianapolis, a digital penpal program that teaches 21st century skills while facilitating cross-cultural dialogue. Project Einstein will connect young Burmese refugees and their classmates in Indianapolis [...]

Ever since Digital Democracy began working with Burmese populations we have believed that it is essential to have a completely comprehensive understanding of the country and the challenges it faces. This means going beyond the well-understood populations living on the border with Thailand to understand conditions on the ground inside Burma and along all of [...]

On January 12th, a devastating earthquake shook Haiti. We had a team of people on the ground working with young Haitians. Thankfully they all survived, but what was life like before and what can it be like after? Today we’re proudly publishing our report from the research they were conducting, looking at the economic livelihoods of  young [...]