CatchLight, a San Francisco–based nonprofit advancing the power of visual storytelling, will unveil the 2025 CatchLight Global Fellows during a special announcement at the CatchLight Visual Storytelling Summit on May 3, 2025, coinciding with World Press Freedom Day. Each fellow will receive a $30,000 grant to support the development of in-depth storytelling projects, with a focus on connecting with communities and expanding the reach of their work through thoughtful, innovative engagement strategies.
The 2025 CatchLight Global Fellows challenge traditional documentary visual storytelling by working in close collaboration with the people they photograph, centering community voices in both process and impact. This year’s Fellows are Rehab Eldalil, a Cairo-based photographer, who actively involves war survivors in the SWANA region in the making of images and mixed media to honor their strength and resilience, and to foster global solidarity; Uruguayan photographer Federico Estol, who collaborates with working-class communities in La Paz, Bolivia, to break stigmas and build visibility through creative storytelling and entrepreneurship; and Adam Perez, a central California-based visual storyteller, who partners with farmworker communities to share their experiences of labor, land, and resilience through photography, video, and public art.
The CatchLight Global Fellowship responds to a growing need in the visual storytelling field by supporting creative leaders who use visual media to drive social change, engage communities, and explore new ways of reaching audiences.
In addition to the grants, CatchLight connects the fellows with a network of partners, mentors and collaborators for customized support to help them achieve their goals during and beyond their fellowship year.
“This year’s Global Fellowship recipients are exceptional visual storytellers who are centering community participation and empowerment in their creative practices,” says Elodie Mailliet Storm, CEO of CatchLight. “We so look forward to supporting them in the next stages of their creative journeys through amplification and innovative engagement strategies.
2025 CATCHLIGHT FELLOWS
From the Ashes © Rehab Eldalil Courtesy Cathlight
From the Ashes © Rehab Eldalil Courtesy Cathlight
In
From the Ashes, I Rose Rehab Eldalil confronts the impact of warfare on civilians in the SWANA region, including Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, by reinterpreting the experiences of patients at the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Amman as acts of resistance and transformation. Through collaborative photography and mixed media—including drawings and diamond-painted Polaroids—the project highlights trauma as a source of strength, celebrating resilience and agency. It challenges victimhood narratives, fosters dialogue between the Global South and Western audiences, and calls for global solidarity against civilian violence.
Through interactive exhibition elements and expanded public outreach including installations, talks, publications, and street art campaigns, the project aims to foster dialogue, encourage allyship, and catalyze collective action in support of more just and humanized portrayals of Arab and African communities.
''My work explores identity through creative participatory practices, involving subjects as participants in the creative process. I develop visual narratives that amplify the autonomy of protagonists through collaboration and challenge colonial representations of communities, including my own as an Arab and African. I hope my practice advocates a nuanced and humanized understanding of the Global South, while initiating a dialogue that promotes an empathetic world.''
Biography: Born (1989) and currently based in Cairo, Egypt, Rehab Eldalil is a documentary photographer, visual storyteller and educator whose work focuses on the broad theme of identity explored through participatory creative practices. To date, she has published two photographic publications and contributed to many others. She has obtained many grants to develop her work including from Magnum Foundation and National Geographic Society among others. Her work has earned numerous prestigious awards including World Press Photo 2022 and has been exhibited internationally. Eldalil is a founding member of aka TAWLA, a photo book collective that promotes and produces publications focused on the SWANA region.
www.rehabeldalil.com
Heroes Del Brillo © Federico Estol Courtesy Cathlight
Heroes Del Brillo © Federico Estol Courtesy Cathlight
For the past eight years, Uruguayan photographer Federico Estol has been working on a long-term project with sixty shoeshiners and the
Hormigón Armado street newspaper in La Paz, Bolivia, using graphic novel and collage workshops to challenge the stigma surrounding these often-stigmatized workers. Embracing the ski mask—originally worn to conceal their identity—as a symbol of resistance and transformation, the project has empowered participants to reshape public perception through storytelling, art, and entrepreneurship.
From publishing to rap albums, toys, and even a shoeshiner-run restaurant, these initiatives have improved incomes and visibility. Now, with the support of the CatchLight Global Fellowship, the project seeks to expand its impact by training ten shoeshiners as visual storytellers to lead new collaborations with five additional shoeshiner organizations across the city—advancing toward a future where the mask is no longer needed.
''The end of visual extractivism begins with fair trade of image rights with communities. We can do participatory processes in our narrative building, but we need to start talking about the distribution of the profits of visual projects coming from the photo industry. (...) The community must be recognized and receive 50% of the proceeds from any distribution of the images. The profits that usually come from the photography industry in the Global North: gallery sales, awards, exhibition fees and publications, ensure the sustainability of actions in the Global South.''
Biography: Federico Estol is an Uruguayan photographer and artivist, producing stories in Latin America, his long-term projects are focused on the relationship between cultural identity, inequality and social justice. In addition, he is the artistic director of the international photography festival SAN JOSÉ FOTO and editor of photobooks at El Ministerio Ediciones. His work has received numerous international awards and is part of various public and private collections across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He is represented by East Wing Gallery.
www.federicoestol.com
Lucio Gómez started riding horses at 8 years old in his home state of Puebla. He recalls being strapped to his mom while she rode from the countryside into town. Now he teaches his kids and other farmworkers the art of Cabalgata. © Adam Perez Courtesy Cathlight
At 72, Esperanza Sanchez is the oldest on her crew working in California’s Coachella Valley. She is among tens of thousands of undocumented farm workers who have spent decades working in the United States — doing the kind of sweaty, backbreaking work that powers much of the country’s farming industry — but are ineligible for Social Security, Medicare or the other forms of retirement relief that would allow them to stop working. - The New York Times, Retirement Without a Net: The Plight of America’s Aging Farmworkers,” 2023 © Adam Perez Courtesy Cathlight
Adam/n Perez is an independent director and photographer born and raised in California’s rural Central Valley. His work spans genres and mediums––all rooted in intimate storytelling. The Emerson Collective, The Center for Cultural Power, The California Arts Council, and the Academy of Arts and Sciences have supported his work on farmworker communities. He graduated with honors from Columbia Journalism School and the University of Southern California, where he’s also worked as an adjunct professor. He’s a member of Diversify Photo and The National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
adamgperez.com
About CatchLight:
CatchLight is a visual-first media organization that leverages the power of visual storytelling to inform, connect, and transform communities. It brings resources and organizations together to discover, develop, and amplify visual storytellers at all levels. The organization invests in the future of visual storytelling through two fellowship programs. CatchLight Local seeks to establish the long-term sustainability of visual journalism by pairing partner newsrooms with community-based visual journalists, Local Fellows, to provide inclusive, in-depth, accurate, and locally contextualized information to the public. The CatchLight Global Fellowship annually provides three visionaries in the field grants to develop long-form storytelling projects, engage audiences, and continue their work as innovators and leaders defining the future of the field.
