To encourage a child to open their eyes and look at the
world, to move him or her to create and use their imagination
is what inspired Winifred Meiser when she founded the
nonprofit educational organization “Through Children’s Eyes”
in 1982.
A Scottish-born gift to our country, Meiser was a
photojournalist, a Navy wife, and a mother. After traveling
the globe for over 40 years, the family has now settled in
Vista, California.
Shortly after she returned to the US, an elementary school
teacher asked her to participate in the educational program
“GATE,” designed for Gifted And Talented Education in the
schools. It was to be a show-and-tell presentation in Los
Angeles.
Meiser realized that if she were to make such a presentation
it would be more useful to the children in the form of a
hands-on kind of thing so she went to a few of the camera
manufacturers — and asked for cameras and film.
Nikon donated the first camera, and Vivitar & Sony also provided 35mm cameras for the program. Fuji Film USA became one of the organization’s founding sponsors and has donated film on request for many years
Beginning with an SLR and then employing one-use cameras when the need increased for equipment, Meiser began to teach her school groups about the innards of a camera. “It’s not the way one might teach photography as a rule,” she says, “but rather it was using photography as an educational tool. No high-tech stuff–justlearning how to be in control of a camera.”