Where is humanity headed? It's a question worth asking even if no clean answer exists. As a species, we keep building tools to close the gap between the world we have and the world we want. The digital camera is one of them — for most people a way to capture memories, for some a profession. At INPRO, we saw a third use: photography as a force for awareness. That's where In Focus began.
The United Nations laid out 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 — a blueprint for a world without war, hunger, poverty or inequality. A greener, fairer, self-sustaining world where everyone has a place. Looking at today's reality makes clear how far that remains. Getting there requires every tool available, and if images have the power to tell stories and move people, it makes sense to point them at the challenges that matter most.
After months of meetings, research and preparation, In Focus: Uniting Cultures Through Photography came to life as an Erasmus+ youth exchange. The goals were straightforward: teach participants new photography skills, introduce them to the 17 SDGs, help them build real connections with people from different countries, and make the whole thing genuinely memorable. We were excited going in, and honest with ourselves about one thing — we were doing this for the first time. Experience only comes from doing it.
Participants arrived from five countries: Poland, Ukraine, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. Over 25 young people between 19 and 27 settled into the INPRO hostel, and the first evening was low-key by design — a shared meal at a local restaurant, introductions, the slow start of something that would move fast by the end of the week.
Monday was the official opening. Each morning began with energizers led by INPRO volunteer Antonis from Greece, short dynamic activities that shook off tiredness and built group momentum. His energy set the tone from day one. That same morning we launched what became one of the week's most talked-about elements: the Secret Friend Game. Each participant was assigned someone to look after in secret, performing small acts of kindness throughout the week without being identified. Simple in concept, genuinely warm in practice — and by Friday, everyone was curious about who had been quietly taking care of them.
Photography workshops ran as a central thread through the whole exchange, led by INPRO volunteer Sihem from France, a professional photographer. Her enthusiasm was hard to resist. People who arrived with no particular interest in photography found themselves engaged within the first session. Later that day, Sihem, Antonis and Brian took the group through a scavenger hunt across Rzeszów — a way to explore the city while the group found its rhythm together.
Tuesday brought the SDGs back into focus. With a week full of activities and energy, it would have been easy to lose sight of the deeper purpose behind the exchange. Each participant chose one of the 17 goals and went out to photograph something that represented it. The results were impressive enough to display at a special edition of Open Café, where the wider INPRO community came to see the work. The photos sparked real conversations — the kind that don't happen without a strong prompt.
Among the week's lighter moments, the Blind Director challenge stood out. Antonis organised it: groups formed, one person directed a scene without being able to see it, and the rest followed their instructions as literally as possible. The photos that came out of it kept people laughing for the rest of the day.
By Friday, the group that had arrived as strangers had become something closer. The Secret Friend Reveal brought the week to a close with a table full of gifts and the small satisfaction of finding out who had been paying quiet attention to you all along. The final activity asked everyone to write something kind on a sheet of paper worn on someone else's back. Each person left holding a page of words written about them by people they hadn't known a week earlier.
On the first morning, I told the group that the week wasn't about becoming professional photographers or solving the world's problems. It was about spending quality, productive time together. Looking back, that framing holds. There were difficulties and moments of doubt — those are unavoidable, and they tend to be where the real learning happens. What In Focus left behind was a group of young people from five countries who had worked together, looked at the world through each other's eyes, and made something worth showing.
The project was funded by the Erasmus+ Programme.
