The Girl With the Camera

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Irakoze

story: Byiringiro Olivier

Discovering a Voice Without Words

In a small, quiet neighborhood on the edge of Kigali, there lived a girl named Irakoze. She was 14 years old, and very silent. Not because she had no voice, but because words didn’t come easily to her.

In class, she hardly raised her hand. At home, she kept to herself. People assumed she was shy, or even strange. But Irakoze wasn’t silent because she lacked something—she was silent because she saw things differently.

One rainy afternoon, while exploring her late uncle’s old belongings, she found a dusty camera at the bottom of a wooden box. It was scratched and half-broken, but something about it felt alive in her hands.

She took it home. No one paid much attention.

At first, she took photos of flowers and insects. Then she started taking photos of people: her mother cooking, her little brother sleeping, her neighbor sweeping the road, street kids playing with a plastic ball, an old man looking out a window.

Every picture held a feeling. A message. A story.

Irakoze started printing her photos and hanging them on the wall of her room. Her mother saw them one day and cried. She saw herself in the picture, strong, focused, full of dignity. She had never seen herself that way before.

Soon, a teacher noticed her talent and helped her submit some photos to a local youth exhibition. To everyone’s surprise, Irakoze’s work was selected.

Her collection was titled:
“Things You Don’t Hear, But Should See.”

It told stories of ordinary people doing ordinary things, but with such quiet beauty that viewers were deeply moved.

Visitors came. They asked, “Who took these?”
And when they saw Irakoze standing silently in the corner, holding her camera, they understood:
She didn’t speak loudly, but she spoke clearly.

After the exhibition, Irakoze was invited to join a youth arts group. She got her first digital camera donated by a local foundation. She started teaching other silent kids how to capture emotion through photography.

She even launched a small Instagram page called  https://www.instagram.com/__be_ll__a___?igsh=dzBxNDY3ZHJocmNi&utm_source=qr, where her photos gained attention from all over the world.

Irakoze never stopped being quiet.
But now, she never needed to explain herself.
Her pictures spoke.

Not every voice is loud. Some voices shine through stillness, through light and frame, through emotion.
Irakoze’s story reminds us: you don’t have to talk to be heard: just find your way of speaking.

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