News & Socials: Challenge funds a fellowship for photographer Mosfiqur Rahman Johan
Money raised through the Paul Lowe Challenge has funded a fellowship for Mosfiqur Rahman Johan, a documentary photographer from Bangladesh, enabling him to be part of the VII Mentor Program 2026-2027.
Johan is one of six mentees in this year’s cohort. Run by The VII Foundation, the VII Mentor Program pairs emerging visual journalists with experienced photographers for 12 months of one-to-one mentoring, expert sessions, and support in developing long-term projects. The Challenge covered Johan’s fellowship and his participation across the year.
An anthropologist by training, Johan documents enforced disappearance, the death penalty, police brutality, and forced displacement in Bangladesh. His recent project, “Memories of Disappearance,” follows families searching for relatives who were taken and never returned, and the people who survived secret detention. He works by embedding with the people he photographs over long periods, returning again and again rather than passing through.
Support like this is what the Challenge set out to do: help train visual journalists from the Majority World, a cause central to Paul’s own work.
