Beyond merely conducting workshops to educate youth about musical production, the organization has branched into workshops video production and has collaborated with local music festivals to further enhance the youth’s experience, and empowerment. Turning Tables also commits itself to the training of local staff, to ensure their facilities remain operational with the intention of self-sufficiency down the road.

Currently, Turning Tables is conducting an international online fundraising campaign for Cambodian street youth, many of whom are former child prostitutes. “Our expectation is that, with the fundraising campaign, will be able to train about 800 vulnerable Cambodian kids for a year, and create a strong outreach program to reach more at-risk youth.” — Martin Jakobson (Founder + Director)

This photo essay takes you to Turning Tables on site locations of Tunisia, Haiti, Libya, Cambodia and Egypt, displaying the many areas, and countless youth who have been powered through their inspired mission. Connect with Turning Tables here, and check out their crowd funded effort for the Cambodian youth on indiegogo.

ANDREW BRIDGE is a global enthusiast with a passion for the road less traveled. As a frequent collaborator with World Hip Hop Market and Nomadic Wax, Andrew has worked with numerous socially conscious artists from around the world in the pursuit of inspiring cultural understanding and exchange through entertainment. This fascination with the world at large has taken him to over 20 countries (so far) through studying, volunteering, and writing about his travels, with no signs of slowing his globetrotting nature down. Connect with Andrew at @Bridgin_TheGap

How does going barefoot raise awareness about health issues? Hookworm is a soil transmitted parasite that affects an average of 740 million people worldwide. How does going barefoot raise awareness about global education issues? In many schools shoes and clothing are a requirement to be able to attend school. By providing a child with a pair of shoes you can not only increase school attendance, but you also assist in raising their future potential earnings by 10%. One pair of shoes can also help raise a child’s self-esteem and give them the confidence to walk proudly into school. Google, Kind Healthy Snacks, HGTV, AOL, Discovery Channel, Just Wink by American Greetings, are just some of TOMS’ major partners that have stepped up to help raise awareness by participating in the One Day without Shoes campaign.

TOMS’ also utilized the social networking platform, Thunderclap. Thunderclap allows people to come together for one cause via multiple social networking devices. Thunderclap automatically posts a message on either Facebook or Twitter of all those who signed up to participate, at exactly 9 a.m. on the day of the campaign.

TOMS’ goal is about more than a pair of shoes. By raising awareness on health, education, and other global issues, TOMS hopes to break the poverty cycle. Check out the feet that took a major step out on April 16, 2013 by going barefoot.

JESSICA LINK is a writer and on-camera host. Her work focuses predominantly on travel, culture, and leisure. She’s trekked all over the globe, but feels there is no place like New York City. She has a passion for working with underprivileged children. Travel, cinema, and dining al fresco are a few of her favorite things!

For more information: www.onedaywithoutshoes.com TOMS even provides a downloadable pocket card to help you share the facts behind your bare feet!

To date, the sale of the children’s photography has raised $17,000 that was used to build a fence around the campus, protecting them from the rebel forces in Sudan, and has provided critical maintenance for the truck that transports all food and medicine for the children. $17,000 is four times the average annual income in Sudan!

You can purchase a child's photograph on the 100cameras website and 100% of your purchase will go directly to IWASSRU to provide lifeline supplies and shelter.

This photo essay is a small selection of the more than 200 photographs of South Sudan taken by South Sudanese kids, as well as projects in other countries around the world.

Connect with 100cameras and purchase images of their kid photographers here. Check out their crowdfunding campaign going on now here at WEDIDIT.

A “pop up megacity” as a research team from Harvard called it, the Kumbh Mela is well known for its spectacular gatherings of pilgrims and congregations of saints, seers, philosophers, gurus, preachers and disciples. An estimated 80 to 100 Million people visit during the festival’s 6 week duration beginning in mid January with the most auspicious bathing days attracting more than 7 million bathers along the banks of the rivers.

Although most media attention focuses on the rituals at the Sangam (most sacred bathing area) the temporary settlement is over 20km sq km and is one of the most complex event planning undertakings on earth with a transitory residency larger than the population of a European country with the supply of electricity, water, basic sanitation, food and a dedicated police force of 30,000. Temporary tents encampments form the core of the city with specific areas referred to as ‘Akharas’ housing the infamous Naga Sadhu contingent. This documentary intends to show the broader context of the event beyond the media frenzy surrounding the acts of devotion at the Sangam, revealing the wider perspectives of acts of pilgrimage and life in the “pop up megacity”. — Shaun Fynn

CHECK OUT SHAUN'S STUDIO AT www.studiofynn.com

SHAUN FYNN is an acclaimed designer and photographer with a long history of advising and creating for Fortune 500 companies, NGO’s and startups. Since founding STUDIOFYNN in 1997 he has lived and practiced globally including the UK, Italy the US and India working in the areas of design, design research, design education and photo documentary.

Building on an idea that originated with 2005′s  Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, the new images feel especially timely now, when reports about half of the world’s food going to waste vie for space with news about rising global food prices. According to a recent article accompanying some of the photos in the UK Independent, “There is deep injustice in the way food is grown and distributed … the world’s poorest people spend 50-90 percent of their income on food, compared with just 10-15 percent in developed countries.”

As you can probably guess, the families’ diets differ depending on where they live. But if if there’s one common thread that links these images, it’s that we all have to eat. We all face challenges and successes when it comes to feeding our families. And we can all help to make the food system fairer for everyone.

So check out seven highlights below. Then tell us in the comments: What does your week’s food supply look like? How does your family measure up?

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ON OXFAM AMERICA'S FIRST PERSON BLOG

ANNA KRAMER is a writer at Oxfam America, a global organization working to right the wrong of poverty. Based in Boston, Kramer is also the editor of Oxfam America’s First Person blog, where this post originally appeared. Find her on Twitter at @annakramer.

City of Refuge fights against child slavery by educating small villages about the harms of keeping children out of school and depriving them of a childhood. The organization is founded on the belief that if they can empower single mothers educationally and economically then they will no longer be vulnerable to selling their children as slaves.

Can you tell me a bit about City of Refuge and the work they do? City of Refuge workers enter villages and open discussions with the chiefs in a respectful manner and work to free children who are in dangerous and/or miserable conditions and separated from their families. On a daily basis, City of Refuge provides home, happiness, and sanctuary to many rescued children. Furthermore, City of Refuge runs the only public school in the city, Doryumu. The organization works at the root of the problem, beginning with single mothers. Many children end up in slavery because mothers simply have absolutely no means of supporting themselves, much less their young children. Selling them, as hard as it may be to believe, truly seems like the only option for many women. Thus, City of Refuge works with single mothers to find alternative solutions to make ends meet, and have started two local businesses to be run by single mothers to increase opportunities for mothers and in turn, reduce the number of children sold into horrific situations.

How were you involved with the organization? I worked in the small school where the children living with the City of Refuge family were educated and spent my evenings at the home playing with children and helping them with their homework. I also spent time shadowing the founders and through this I learned much about the process.

What do you know about child slavery in Ghana? Children are targeted as slaves for fishermen for several reasons. First, children are easy to acquire as so many parents are impoverished and feel financially helpless. Second, children’s small hands are ideal for making and untangling fishing nets. When the nets get trapped in trees in the lake, children are sent in the water to untangle them. Unfortunately, this means many of the child slaves are incredibly susceptible to water-borne disease and illness and sadly, some do not know how to swim and may drown in the water. Children who are enslaved receive no form of education or care and spend up to eighteen hours a day working on the lake. They are often fed no more than one meal a day, which frequently consists of just gari, a food made from cassava, soaked in the lake water..

Any advice for travelers going to Ghana? This is probably true for every country, but just approach everything with an open mind, try new things, immerse yourself in the culture as much as possible.

How can readers help the victims of Child Slavery in Ghana? Check out City of Refuge for more information.

Other organizations doing good work include Youth Generation Against Poverty (YGAP), an organization that inspires volunteers through creative fundraising opportunities. They have created several projects partnered with City of Refuge.

ELIZABETH TULSKY (photos) Elizabeth is a senior studying social work at NYU. She has always wanted to become a social worker—to make changes and affect people's lives, but when she graduates she plans to travel and work globally, both in Ghana and in other parts of the world. You can contact her at elizabeth@mission.tv

I saw that vision come full circle as we brought the exhibition TO Afghanistan, among Afghans themselves to surround them with the beauty and spirit of their country and communities. 28 photographs lined the market streets outside of the mosque on the first day of Eid in the village of Istalif and the reaction was nothing short of amazing.

Setting up the exhibition itself was an enormous task. It takes two people to assemble each image in the dusty streets. It takes a lot of muscle and stamina to move the exhibition into place, and alot of ingenuity to keep them in place on 4×4 worthy roads. Luckily our team has that in spades.

Many people expressed their doubt about the feasibility of pulling this off in a country like Afghanistan. Many more questioned the value of taking such a risk for ‘art’. Would Afghans understand it? What’s the point of doing this in a war zone? It’s not worth the risk. What that really means is that they think Afghans aren’t worth the risk. That because this is a country fraught with conflict and poverty that art doesn’t have much importance. I disagree. I think art is all the more important here.

So when I was asked, often, “Is it worth it?”

HELL yes. Beyond a doubt it’s worth it.

Seeing men smile and laugh while pointing at the paintings and talk animatedly with each other, and to have old men in elaborate turbaned and ancient faces tell me “thank you” in halting English makes me prouder than anything I have ever done in this country.

We watched little girls come by and touch the images, interact and smile and laugh with us. We watched young boys look at a photo of a busy Kabul street for 20 minutes as though they were right there – never having been there themselves.

More importantly… we were treated with honor and grace from the entire village that treated us as their guests. Invited to lunch, for tea, and had multiple offers to spend the night with their families. The same response I have been beyond blessed to experience in many other Afghan villages. Proving time and time again, that ‘Hell yes. It’s SO worth it.” I’m honored to bring this show to Afghanistan. I’m honored to showcase another side of Afghanistan back home. Yeah, it’s worth it.

In 2008 Mountain2Mountain launched the Streets of Afghanistan project, facilitating a collaboration of Afghan and Western photographers to document Afghan life through the rarely seen Afghan lens, immersing the viewer in the landscapes and faces of Afghanistan, transporting them directly into the culture and mindset of the country’s people. After touring the U.S. the exhibit of 29, 10×17 photographs now returns to the Afghan people. Follow along as we bring the exhibition back to Afghanistan.

SHANNON GALPIN (words): Fueled by her own experience with violence against women and inspired by becoming a mother, Shannon founded Mountain2Mountain, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide education and opportunities to women in conflict zones. An avid mountain biker continually focused on breaking gender barriers, in 2009 she became the first woman to mountain bike in Afghanistan, a country where the culture does not permit women to ride bikes. A TEDx speaker, she has been featured on Dateline NBC, Huffington Post, and Outside Magazine and is a subject in the documentary film series, MoveShake.

TONY DI ZINNO (images): From passion projects in Afghanistan to behind the scenes documentary films with racing heroes at the Indy 500, photographer Tony Di Zinno, is a self proclaimed photo sherpa. Di Zinno made his bones early in his career on Nike propaganda with print campaigns with the worlds most famous athletes in every category. This former competitive athlete turned concerned photographer makes his home nowadays near Venice, CA and when not on location working on assignment can be found at his old alma teaching as an adjunct professor of Photography and Imaging at his alma mater, the Art Center College of Design.

Q: What inspired you to go to Kenya and Uganda in the first place, and why there?

A: I wanted to SEE where some money I had put aside for charity would be going, and decide for myself where it would go. I went to Uganda to check out a diary goat project that a friend of a friend had instituted. Kenya was to check out Free The Children's villages. Those were the options I had narrowed down to from North America.

Q: What are the specific issues you saw when you got there, and what surprised you?

A: You name it. Water, sanitation, lack of education, and the thing that surprised me the most... ZERO opportunity. In the West it is generally accepted that if you try hard enough, if you work hard enough, if you go for it long enough, you will make it. Or maybe I should say that the chance is there that you might "make it". What I saw in Uganda and Kenya was what we called the global lottery system. The people I met in the small villages in the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda don't just have it hard. They have no choice, and in most cases, no way to make their life better. They have ZERO opportunity.

Q: What advice would you give to someone considering a volunteer trip or traveling outside of their comfort zone?

A: Stop considering it and book it. Period. Don’t wait for every single thing to line up. GO.

TAYLOR CONROY (@destroynormal): Taylor is the founder of 'Change Heroes' and 'Destroy Normal Consulting', which focus on innovative philanthropy and building projects like schools, wells, and libraries all over the developing world. His most recent efforts have seen schools funded in India, Nepal, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania, impacting over 30,000 children. He has set foot on every continent, dozens of countries, and has worked as a professional fire fighter, real estate broker, and currently as an avid social entrepreneur.

Around the world human traffickers trick many people into slavery by false promises of good jobs or good education, only to find themselves forced to work without pay, under the threat of violence. Trapped by phony debt, these slaves are hunted by local police and private security guards if they try to escape. Sometimes slaves don't even understand that they're enslaved, despite people working 16 or 17 hours a day with no pay. They're simply used to it as something they've been doing their whole lives. Their bodies grow weak and vulnerable to disease, but they have nothing to compare their experience to.

For the last 28 years I have documented people in more than 100 countries on six continents. In 2009, at the Vancouver Peace Summit, I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO dedicated to eradicating modern-day slavery; weeks later, I flew down to Los Angeles and met with the director of Free the Slaves; thus began my journey into exploring modern-day slavery.

Oddly, I'd been to most of the locations where I started photographing slavery many times before. I even considered some of them homes-away-from-home. But there can be dark corners in familiar places.

These are not images of "problems." They're images of people. There are 27 million slaves in the world today: That's more than double the number of people taken from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade. A hundred and fifty years ago, an average agricultural slave cost over three times the average yearly wage of an American worker, about US$50,000 in today's money. Yet now, entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $18. Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world. — Lisa Kristine

THIS MATERIAL WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE ATLANTIC.

Lisa Kristine is a humanitarian photographer who specializes in images of remote indigenous cultures. Lisa's most recent focus has been documenting modern day slavery and collaborating with NGOs in this effort. By purchasing one of her prints or slavery book or soon-to-be poster a percentage of proceeds will go toward fighting slavery. Her work may be found at www.lisakristine.com.

Child marriage, which is broadly defined as marriage before the age of 18, is a practice that still exists in sub-Saharan, West, East and North Africa, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Caribbean and even in some communities in Europe such as areas of France and North America with some U.S. states legally allowing children to marry under the age of 18 with parental consent. Children who are married off are often forced into the union and because of this it can also be referred to as forced marriage. While this practice might be seen as abhorrent in many cultures, in these communities, many families continue the practice because it is what they believe to be in their children’s best interest, or even, what they feel they must do to survive in cases of extreme poverty.

According to Pathfinder International, poverty is a defining factor as to why child marriage still exists. Giving a daughter away to marriage allows families to reduce expenses and in some traditions, receiving a dowry or bride price is common practice. Children coming from poor families are about twice as likely to marry before 18 as those from wealthier families. Child marriage is also deeply rooted in the traditions of these communities, with some families seeking to maintain family status within them. This is tied to the success of their children and when a daughter gets married, it is representative of her success. In many cultures, if a woman becomes too old for marriage it would mean a failure on part of their parents and be a risk her to her survival.

Famine in Somalia

The United Nations declares a famine when 20% of households face severe food shortages. more than 30 % of the population is malnourished, and two out of every 10,000 people die from hunger each day. In July 2011, in the midst of the worst drought the country had seen in more than 60 years, the UN officially declared a famine in Somalia. The anti-Western, al-Qaeda linked militant group, al-Shabab made the situation worse, banning Western aid agencies from entering the territory and subsequently blocking starving individuals from gaining access to food. Al-Shabab has accused foreign aid workers of being spies as well as killed and kidnapped workers. The group has also diverted food supplies for themselves, leaving starving Somalis without any options and aid organizations in a tricky spot.

In February 2012, the UN declared the famine in Somalia to be over, but the country still remains in crisis with widespread hunger and violence. Since the collapse of its central government two decades ago and the civil war that ensued in 1991, Somalia has been faced with myriad disasters and has ranked as one of the poorest, most violent countries on earth. Last year, a drought killed livestock and farms which spiked death and malnutrition rates. Desperate Somalis trekked across the desert in search of aid and some arrived in Kenyan refugee camps while the few hospitals in Mogadishu were overcrowded with malnourished people affected by famine and violence.

The United Nations helped to raise more than $1 billion for relief efforts across Somalia and organizations such as the Turkish Red Crescent Society and The World Food Program have been working towards providing humanitarian relief in the country. Also, with the help of heavy rains in November, famine conditions began to subside in some parts of the country. However, the crisis is far from over and violence, instability and hunger is still widespread across Somalia.

The Turkish Red Crescent Society is a humanitarian organization that has been working to provide relief in Somalia. For more information, visit: www.kizilay.org.tr/english/

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is a leading humanitarian organization that provides medical care to people caught in crises. They work within over 60 countries and remain the main provider for free medical services in central and southern Somalia.

The World Food Programme reaches up to 1.3 million peopole with food relief to areas of Somalia which they have access to including, Mogadishu, Puntland, Somaliland, central regions and some border areas of the south. They have increased their nutrition programs to treat and prevent malnutrition.