Sassy Mama Supports: Photo4Good, A Student-Run Organisation Dedicated To Helping Charity

Photo4Good was launched by students who decided they wanted to use their photography skills to help charitable organisations

We at Sassy Mama are always looking for organisations that inspire us. So when we heard about Photo4Good, we were intrigued! Photo4Good is a shining example of how kids can make a huge difference by just putting forth a bit of effort. We’re proud to feature them as this month’s Sassy Supports. We spoke with Tien Yi Li, vice president of Communications, on how the organisation began and what other students can do to help out.

What makes us special is that this organisation is completely student-run. We began as a group of four secondary students in 2017, led by Noxx Lam, who essentially came up with the idea to provide free photography services to local non-profits. This idea was prompted by the realisation that non-profits expend huge amounts of funds for marketing purposes in order to garner enough support to sustain their organisation. The idea that donations go to marketing instead of the people in need often discourages donations. So, we decided to alleviate marketing expenses for non-profits so funds are actually delivered to those in need.

We began by shooting photos for events as directed by the non-profits. Eventually more organisations came to know us, and we now serve a growing number of charities including long-term commitments with KELY Support Group, Support! International Foundation, and Inter Cultural Education. We expanded our services from event documentation to shooting portraits, video documentation, and creating promotional videos for those organisations over the year.

The fact that Photo4Good runs solely on our extracurricular time and efforts limited us from serving the growing demand. So, in the 2018 school year, Jasmine Li decided to expand our network of photographers and turn this into an inter-school network of student photographers with a core team of three as the mediator between non-profits and local secondary schools. Although Photo4Good is unable to promise extracurricular credits for participating students, we have connected with students in over six schools in Hong Kong, who are solely motivated by their desire to put their skills to serve a good cause.

It has been a pleasure to work with enthusiastic and kind students like them. In the coming year, we are looking to expand not only our network of non-profits, but also our network of student photographers. Photo4Good now acts as a mediator between student photographers and the non-profits’ demand. We register any interested student photographers into our database, and we send them newsletters regularly about photography service opportunities. So far, we have student photographers from other schools across three districts now. Regardless, we are still looking for more student photographers willing to put their skill set into good use to join our efforts! We open photographer applications to all secondary students in Hong Kong. To register they simply have to fill in this form.

I personally really recommend this opportunity because joining Photo4Good is different from joining a well-established organisation. There are no guidelines for us to follow; instead, as a team we together decide how this organisation will develop. All of our members have a voice in how this organisation grows and functions in the future. Given such flexibility, even if you aren’t an experienced photographer but have other ideas as to how you could support our efforts, please feel free to tell us through our website, Facebook, or Instagram to discuss cooperation details. We would also appreciate it if you could share about us so more non-profits know about us and could benefit from our services, or students so they could support the Photo4Good efforts.

Photo4Good,  www.photo4good.com email: [email protected]; www.facebook.com/pg/photo4good; Instagram: @photo4goodhk