American photographer Lana Wong started the Shootback Project in August 1997 with MYSA youth leader and renown footballer Francis Kimanzi to help give young people in Mathare a voice to tell their own stories. Equipped with $30 plastic cameras, a group of 31 boys and girls, aged 12 to 17, photographed their lives and wrote about them every week for almost two years.

The results, from kids who had never held cameras before, were honest, raw, amusing and beautiful- these visceral images became the basis of a book called Shootback : Photos by Kids from the Nairobi Slums ( Booth-Clibborn Editions, London 1999). The book was launched at the Barbican Centre, London with an exhibition that traveled to the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC ; Staff USA Gallery, New York ; Festival Mundial, Tilburg, the Netherlands ; Bildungszentrum der Handwerkskammer, Berlin ; and Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine in Bamako, Mali.

The pictures and words of this talented group attest to the power of photography to transform the lives of disadvantaged youth. More than a decade after it started, the Shootback project continues to train young photographers in Mathare and their photos are displayed both in the slum and in international shows.