The gender violence that disproportionately affects women, people from the LGBTQIA+ community and other marginalized groups was the lens through which journalists recently created perhaps the most complete and unique photo collection in Latin America.

The #CambiaLaHistoria project, coordinated by DW Akademie and the Salvadoran media outlet Alharaca, with the support of Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, has published its third edition of 30 stories from across nine countries: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Cuba, El Salvador and Honduras.

For eight months, 32 independent communicators and journalists trained in editing, illustration, photography and video and audio production. They produced reports, chronicles, podcasts and comics throughout 2024, challenging traditional journalism by focusing on structural violence from the perspectives of gender and human rights and by employing constructive journalism.

The process included security for journalists and editors in order to reduce any possible repercussions in the region, where the rate of violence against journalists is very high.

Layered reporting about structural violence

Often, narratives about explicit violence in Latin America avoid the multiple layers of oppression and discrimination, and reproduce stereotypes that do nothing to explain the real and complex reasons behind both.

For this very reason, journalists and editors insist that it is possible to report on forced displacement, organized crime violence and human trafficking, among many other issues, through journalism that inspires hope. This is a journalism in which violence takes precedence in reporting but it is narrated from the structural and social factors that perpetuate it, so that audiences learn of explanations that can even possibly help them build a better society.

The third edition of #CambiaLaHistoria, a project of DW Akademie and the feminist digital media Alharaca in El Salvador, was promoted by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.