About me
Photo (c) Manuela Maiulini
I am a Colombian American storyteller. I grew up in various countries and have lived and worked with people in many corners of the world. Moving between cultures, I have always seen people as people – we all share a need to be loved, appreciated, and inspired.
With a father in the United Nations and a mother working as an anthropologist with indigenous communities in the Amazon, I was taught to respect other cultures and perspectives from a young age. I also grew up with an awareness of the inequities and power imbalances in international development, anthropology, and in the world around me in general - it made me uncomfortable. This discomfort fueled my passion to work towards a more compassionate and just world.
After graduating from college, I moved to Ahmedabad, India, on a Hart fellowship through Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, to work with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). I brought my dad’s analog Olympus camera from the 70’s and, through writing and photography, set out to document the impact of SEWA’s childcare programs. I spent most of my days in the poorest parts of the city, watching, speaking with, and getting to know the teachers who ran the centers, the children who attended, and their parents.
When I returned from India, I got a job at Planned Parenthood, and launched into what would be a career of more than 20 years working in sexual and reproductive health and rights, and global health in general. I got a master’s degree in Maternal and Child Health from UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and worked with various international and local NGOs around the world.
Storytelling has always been a common thread for me, whether it has meant documenting the impact of the abortion ban in Nicaragua, or the importance of connecting migrant farmworkers with healthcare through outreach programs in rural North Carolina, or the benefits of a small rural college’s efforts on conservation in the DRC.
Over the years, I have witnessed the power of stories and images to change minds when it seemed like nothing else could. I have watched people’s eyes light up when given a camera to capture their world.
I have also seen the challenges that organizations face to incorporate storytelling into their projects and programs. And they have led me to seek out solutions. I have seen the power imbalances between those who are telling the stories and the people whose stories are being told. And they have led me to explore more participatory methods for ethical storytelling.
I bring my love for stories, informed by my lived experience and lessons learned along the way, to support organizations in incorporating participatory and ethical storytelling to enhance impact, meaningfully engage with communities and shift the narratives that perpetuate injustice.
What People Are Saying
“
Sara Gomez is an absolute joy to work with. First some adjectives about Sara: creative, compassionate, calm, nuanced, organized, and culturally competent. She is a superb writer, seemingly effortlessly, and has a deep understanding of how to communicate with visual media. She is a fast learner and leads and takes the initiative in a team situation in a calm, friendly way and always has good ideas.
Writing about a higher education institution in a remote area of the Democratic Republic of Congo requires, among other things, someone with a thoroughly international outlook and a deep understanding of life in another country, as well as creative use of photos and reports to convey the uniqueness and importance of the college and its students. I have worked with a number of people on communications about Djolu Technical College over the years, but none have been as qualified as Sara.
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— Dr. Ingrid Schulze, Founder and Executive Director of Congo Education Partners
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I’m so grateful to have worked with Sara during our photovoice project for a collective of people of color. She was thoughtful and considerate of varying opinions and perspectives. She made sure that our voices and viewpoints were heard and seen throughout our project. She was always one step ahead of us with planning, helping us anticipate potential problems and consider solutions.
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— Lin-Fan Wang, MD MPH, CENTRS Health
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Working with Sara has truly been the best experience working with a consultant in my professional career. Sara is extremely organized, detail-oriented, engaging, thoughtful, creative and always meets deadlines. Her professional expertise has helped guide our project from beginning stages to launching and I look forward to continuing to use Sara's expertise as a consultant in the future.
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— April, MD, CENTRS Health
