PhotoLetters to TB
At KNCV, we leverage a comprehensive approach to health. Across our extensive work in diagnostics, prevention and treatment, we put people at the heart of our interventions. This means, listening to their stories, connecting, supporting, and amplifying the voices of the communities that we work with. Our PhotoLetters to TB are part of our innovative approaches to community, rights, gender, and stigma, designed to bring us closer to the people we serve and amplify their lived-experiences.
What is PhotoLetters to TB?
The PhotoLetters to TB method helps people affected by TB use simple photography and writing techniques to share their lived experience and story of illness.
Professional equipment or photography and writing skills are not needed. People participating in PhotoLetters to TB workshops just need a phone or simple camera, curiosity, and intention.
PhotoLetters is an effective method for:
- Stigma reduction
- Peer support
- Psychosocial support for persons affected by TB
- Community engagement
- Advocacy and resource mobilization
- Participatory action research
- Community led monitoring
- And more...
Through photographs and short pieces of writing, people can tell a story about their own journey with TB. Creating PhotoLetters can be a powerful way for people to reflect on and process their own experience. At the same time, their story can help raise awareness and inspire understanding within the wider TB community.
A recent study conducted by KNCV recognizes the complexity of physical and psychological sequelae of tuberculosis (TB), however, the stories from people affected by TB remains untold most of the time. This is what ignites the development of approaches such as PhotoLetters to TB.
By sharing their stories, people affected by TB contribute to making the voices and experiences of the TB community more visible.
Why implement KNCV's PhotoLetters to TB
PhotoLetters to TB is an innovative arts-based approach for health and well-being that merges TB PhotoVoices and Writing to Health Workshops to help individuals process and articulate emotions and experiences linked to their journey with TB in a creative manner.
Arts-based approaches are proven to be a supportive mechanism for externalizing, processing and managing traumatic memories and emotions, which leads to a reduction of symptoms related to anxiety, depression, fear, etc.
Additionally, the PhotoLetters to TB method implemented in group contexts is designed to share experience and provide peer support for persons with TB, which is also shown to enhance mental health by reducing symptoms of anxiety, fear and depression.
PhotoLetters to TB is an initiative that can be taken up by individuals as well as by organizations who conduct community-based interventions. The photography and writing outputs people create can be utilized for other purposes (with participant permission), such as:
- Advocacy and resource mobilization
- Exhibitions and conferences
- Community led monitoring (CLM)
- Participatory action research (PAR)
- Training
Facilitate peer support groups using PhotoLetters to TB
KNCV has developed a comprehensive facilitation package to facilitate the PhotoLetters to TB method. This package is designed as a framework for community organizations and patient advocates to lead a series of five 90-minute group sessions with persons affected by TB.
The package includes:
- A facilitator manual for community organizations and patient advocates
- Participant guide for reference between group sessions
- High resolution photography resources for teaching photography techniques.
We provide a training of trainers for organizations wishing to make use of this method in their peer support and advocacy interventions. Contact Inez de Kruijf-Carter (inez.dekruijf-carter@kncvtbc.org) to receive further information on the comprehensive facilitation package and the training of trainers.
Would you like a sneak peak into the PhotoLetters to TB method or try it yourself?
Participate in the PhotoLetters to TB Challenge!
Individuals who wish to use the PhotoLetters to TB method to process their own experience with TB, or to generate advocacy materials using a unique, arts-based approach to raise awareness, can download the participant guide to learn three photography techniques and the Letter to TB expressive writing method.
KNCV is hosting a PhotoLetters challenge, and we would love for you to join us!
During the Special Meeting Day on World TB Day 2026, KNCV experts, Inez de Kruijf-Carter and Juan Mora Barrios, kicked off PhotoLetters to TB with a group of people who were treated for TB in the Netherlands. After this day, KNCV has opened a PhotoLetters to TB challenge and has an ongoing submission form to include your PhotoLetter to TB into our online exhibition.
At KNCV it is important to us that the voices and lived experiences of people affected by tuberculosis (TB) are heard across the TB community. Your story matters, and PhotoLetters can be a powerful way to express it. To support this, we are are hosting a PhotoLetters blog on the KNCV TB Plus website, where participants can share photographs and personal reflections about their experiences with TB.
If we receive enough PhotoLetters, we plan to organize a PhotoLetters exhibition at the Union Conference in Brazil in 2026, where these images and stories can be displayed to a global audience.
But... we need your help!
We invite you to submit your PhotoLetters.
Join the challenge. Tell your story.
You are not required to be a professional photographer or writer.
What matters most is the story you want to tell about your journey with TB.
Your submission should include:
- 5 photographs (one photo per theme described in the participant guide).
- Along with each photograph, a short personal perspective on each theme written in the ‘Letter to TB’ format on your experience with TB.
You are not required to be a professional photographer or writer. What matters most is the story you want to tell about your journey with TB.
Who should participate?
KNCV's PhotoLetters to TB is designed to cater to different audiences within the diversity of the TB community including:
- People who have received TB treatment
- People on TB treatment
- Caregivers and family members
- Peer supporters
- Healthcare and community health workers
- Patient advocates
- TB researchers
- TB Program managers
- NTP staff
Your PhotoLetters always remain your property. By sharing them with us, you are simply allowing KNCV TB Plus to feature them on our website and in exhibitions. We will acknowledge you as photographer and writer in all formats that these materials will be published. We do not provide remuneration for any materials submitted.
Participant Guide. PhotoLetters to TB. 2026
Join the challenge. Tell your story.
You are not required to be a professional photographer or writer.
What matters most is the story you want to tell about your journey with TB.
PhotoLetters to TB Blog
Take a look at PhotoLetters submitted by other persons affected by TB.