As individuals around the world celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, they can use powerful, positive photographs from Getty Images that show women’s lives and their work in eleven countries. The newly expanded Images of Empowerment collection, created by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, features 2,000 high-quality, editorial images of women working, accessing and providing reproductive health information and services, and as active participants in their communities in Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, and the United States.
The photographs are available free of charge to noncommercial users, as well as for licensing to Getty Images’ global customer base of creative agencies, news organizations, and editorial clients.
Today, the photo library has a new, searchable stock photography website at ImagesofEmpowerment.org, and a new collection of 150 images from Rwanda. These images feature women and young leaders in Rwanda who are working to ensure quality sexual and reproductive health information and services reach all who need them.
The project is funded by two separate private philanthropic organizations: the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The Hewlett Foundation’s Global Development and Population Program makes grants to ensure women have full opportunities to earn a living and can choose whether and when to have children. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation supports reproductive health advocates, researchers, and providers to advance quality sexual and reproductive health information, services, and rights.
“Pictures help us tell the stories of our lives and experiences,” said Hewlett Foundation Communications Officer Sarah Jane Staats. “Yet too often, nonprofits working on today’s most important issues — like expanding women’s opportunities — don’t have affordable or easy access to images that accurately explain their work. These high-quality images will help nonprofits around the world tell the stories of their work and inspire action.”
“We built upon the Images of Empowerment collection to amplify stories of women and youth who are actively engaged in their lives and communities,” said Packard Foundation Communications Officer Emily Bosworth. “The latest collection portrays leaders across Rwanda just as they are: in decision-making roles, accessing and providing quality reproductive health information and services, and with agency over their bodies and lives.”
The images, taken by Jonathan Torgovnik, Paula Bronstein, Juan Arredondo, Nina Robinson, and Yagazie Emezi for Getty Images, spotlight several nonprofit organizations that have grants from one or both foundations. The newest collections include Health Development Initiative, the Imbuto Foundation, Kasha, Medical Students for Choice, Youth Development Labs, Teen Health Mississippi, and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO).
“Getty Images is proud to further its partnership with the Hewlett and Packard foundations and expand the Images of Empowerment collection,” said Katie Calhoun, VP of Sales at Getty Images. “For the last 25 years, Getty Images has embraced the power of imagery to change perceptions, inspire action and change behavior on a global scale. We are committed to collaborate with key partners to drive the visual narrative forward and authentically depict women in media and advertising around the world.”
The images show the close connection between women’s productive lives at work and their reproductive lives. Getty Images photographer Jonathan Torgovnik described meeting Aisha Adam in Ghana’s Kantamanto Market. “It was quite an emotional experience seeing her carry heavy loads on her head while also carrying her young child on her back. I really admire her tenacity and strength.”
Getty Images photographer Yagazie Emezi reflected on her experience documenting the new collection from Rwanda: “The women I photographed are health workers, community activists, students, mothers and daughters with such joy and close bonds to their families. They are women helping other women. This is what they look like and it’s important for the world to see them as they truly are.”
The collection combines Getty Images’ world-class photography and image library with special licensing from Creative Commons that allows the images to be used for free by noncommercial users, including many of the nonprofit organizations that receive grants from both the Hewlett Foundation and the Packard Foundation. Since the collection was launched in 2015, Images of Empowerment photographs have been used by dozens of nonprofits, at major international conferences like Women Deliver, and by media including the New York Times, Vox, and the Guardian.
The images are available at ImagesofEmpowerment.org.
About the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is a nonpartisan, private charitable foundation that advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world. For more than 50 years, it has supported efforts to advance education for all, preserve the environment, improve lives and livelihoods in developing countries, promote women’s health and economic well-being, support vibrant performing arts, strengthen Bay Area communities and make the philanthropy sector more effective. On the web at www.hewlett.org.
About the David and Lucile Packard Foundation: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is a private family foundation created in 1964 by David Packard (1912–1996), cofounder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, and Lucile Salter Packard (1914–1987). The Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations in the following program areas: Conservation and Science; Population and Reproductive Health; Children, Families, and Communities; and Local Grantmaking. The Foundation makes national and international grants and also has a special focus on the Northern California counties of San Benito, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey. Foundation grantmaking includes support for a wide variety of activities including direct services, research and policy development, and public information and education. Learn more at www.packard.org.
About Getty Images: Getty Images is one of the most trusted and esteemed sources of visual content in the world, with over 375 million assets including photos, videos, and music, available through its industry-leading sites www.gettyimages.com and www.istock.com. The Getty Images website serves creative, business and media customers in nearly every country in the world and is the first-place people turn to discover, purchase and share powerful visual content from the world’s best photographers and videographers. Getty Images works with over 310,000 contributors and hundreds of image partners to provide comprehensive coverage of more than 160,000 news, sport and entertainment events each year, impactful creative imagery to communicate any commercial concept and the world’s deepest digital archive of historic photography.
Visit Getty Images at www.gettyimages.com to learn more about how the company is advancing the unique role of still and moving imagery in communication and business, enabling creative ideas to come to life. For company news and announcements, visit our Press Room, and for the stories and inspiration behind our content, visit gettyimages.creativeinsights.com. Find Getty Images on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or download the Getty Images app where you can explore, save and share the world’s best imagery.
Contacts:
Sarah Jane Staats, Hewlett Foundation, 650-234-4741, sjstaats@hewlett.org
Emily Bosworth, Packard Foundation, 650-917-7218, ebosworth@packard.org
