February 20, 2011 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Carolyn Lane loves to travel, a passion that combines naturally with her talent for taking photographs. During a trip to Haiti in 2007 to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, the Washington resident spent time with a group of little girls, interacting and taking group pictures. Looking at the images later, she realized that she was smiling but the children were not.
“A Haitian friend told me, ‘Most of these girls have never had their picture taken. This was an important event for them, and they wanted to look dignified,’” says Ms. Lane. She thought of how she and other Americans take and share photos routinely amongst themselves, “but then we go on these trips and we don’t even think of sharing or exchanging the pictures we take with the subjects.”
“I resolved then that I would never again presume to take somebody’s picture and then walk away without sharing it with them,” she says.
That resolution led to the founding, in 2008, of Dog Meets World, a nonprofit group that sends its signature small, stuffed canine—named Foto—out into the world along with volunteers armed with digital cameras and portable, battery-powered printers.
Ms. Lane calls Dog Meets World “an add-on project. People already heading to the developing world for a host of reasons, vacation or business travel, or whatever, can use this as a way to interact and connect with the community.”
Xander Meise Bay, a lawyer who lives in New Hampshire, volunteered as a “phodographer” (as the charity calls its helpers who fetch pictures) last August while working on a war-crimes tribunal in Cambodia. She also made a side trip to Myanmar, where she photographed young children she met outside a monastery school in Bago.
“Working in the developing world, you’re often addressing some pretty intractable and distressing problems,” she says. “Dog Meets World is a fun, hopeful thing with some immediate satisfaction for everyone involved. You can’t help but smile.”
Currently, Dog Meets World has a staff of one—Ms. Lane, who draws no salary. She is helped by her 25-year-old son, Austin, who co-founded the charity and handles its Web site and marketing.
The annual $15,000 budget comes from private donations. Volunteers use their own equipment and donate to the charity to receive a Foto dog.
Why the dog? In a word, Ms. Lane says, “branding”: “We’ve had 200 volunteers in 38 countries take and give over 6,000 pictures, and visually Foto ties all these wide-flung places and people together.”
Foto was designed by Ms. Lane to resemble her real-life dog, Jazz. The toy functions as an icebreaker: “This gives the kids something to hold and also helps cross any language barrier.”
Foto’s front paws are embroidered with a heart and a peace sign, emblematic of Dog Meets World’s mission.
“If you had very few photos, how long do you think you’d hang on to this one? A lifetime,” says Ms. Lane.
