LONDON, July 3 /PRNewswire/ --

- With Photo

From 15th July a photographic exhibition with a difference will be on display for a month at Baltic Restaurant, SE1.

The exhibition is the culmination of an eight-month project where some of London's most vulnerable women learnt photographic skills through a series of workshops and meetings and where they began to share and communicate for the first time, through their work and focus on an occupation other than chasing basic survival needs.

These women have never been given an opportunity to speak out safely, but now they have catalogued their lives in a series of hard-hitting images.

Change the Picture is a participatory photography project between Photovoice and U-Turn that has given these women the chance to raise awareness of the 'unspoken' topic of prostitution, homelessness and abuse and the difficulties these women face in everyday life.

This year, U-Turn will introduce more educational and development projects like this one, and is calling on local businesses and organisations for help. Offering these programmes is essential if the women are to find a way out of prostitution to begin a better life. The project aim is to re-build the women's confidence and self esteem in the short term by learning new skills in a structured and nurturing environment, while offering encouragement in the longer term to help them to turn their lives around.

FACT: There are over 700 women on the streets in the East End, most are under 25 and have been addicted to drugs for over 10 years. Rarely do women choose a life on the streets; they're usually forced into it by drug addiction and a lifetime of sexual, physical or mental abuse. Once in, exiting is difficult.

Nick Broomfield, the award winning documentary maker and also the patron of U-Turn says, "It's shocking to think that helping homeless prostitutes isn't on the Government's agenda...these women are among the most marginalised and hard to reach in society."

U-Turn and PhotoVoice are hoping this exhibition will help raise public awareness and support for this issue.

The women's first photographic exhibition will be on show from 15th July at Baltic Restaurant for a month and entrance is free.

U-Turn believes that these women are vulnerable and desperate and should not be discriminated against or ignored by society. They need our help more than ever.

Notes to editors

U -Turn Project (charity number 1105126) was established in 2004 to work with vulnerable and hard to reach women who are trapped in a cycle of prostitution, drug addiction, physical abuse and homelessness, and have been from a young age. U-Turn helps over 250 women a year, a fraction of the real number of women that are on the streets of East London. U-Turn offers a confidential outreach and drop in centre giving these women an opportunity to build confidence and self worth and begin the hard journey of changing their future. http://www.uturnproject.co.uk

PhotoVoice, set up in 1999 develops projects to empower some of the most disadvantaged groups in the world with photographic skills so that they can transform their lives. Through establishing in-field photojournalism workshops its projects enable those who are traditionally the subjects of photography to become its creator. Through photography these individuals find confidence in their voices and are enabled to speak out about their challenges, concerns, hopes and fears. http://www.photovoice.org

Baltic Restaurant, 74 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA http://www.balticrestaurant.co.uk +44(0)20-7928-1111

A picture accompanying this release is available through the PA Photowire. It can be downloaded from http://www.pa-mediapoint.press.net or viewed at http://www.mediapoint.press.net or http://www.prnewswire.co.uk.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the Chair of U-Turn or Co-Founder of PhotoVoice, please contact Emma Hall: email emma@uturnproject.co.uk.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the Chair of U-Turn or Co-Founder of PhotoVoice, please contact Emma Hall on +44(0)7956-307-382 or email emma@uturnproject.co.uk in the first instance.