EPHAS founder Ryan Ansin displays a photo that depicts the word “pain.” The photo was shot by 17-year-old Emile Jeffie at the American Refugee Committee’s tent city in Port Au Prince, Haiti. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

About 15 Bromfield art students watched intently as images appeared on the laptop screen: a child huddled on a bed during Hurricane Tomas, a pair of manacled hands, a mother holding a baby, a handful of flower petals. Each picture symbolized a concept: fear, pain, hope, beauty.

The photographs were the work of Haitians, Rwandans, Cambodians, and others, each of whom had received a camera and some basic instruction in using it through an organization called EPHAS (Every Person Has a Story). The images of hope, fear, and other concepts are part of what EPHAS calls "the Fifteen-Word Exercise," through which people from different cultures can communicate though photographs about basic ideas and feelings.

EPHAS is the brainchild of twenty-something Ryan Ansin, who described the project to members of Bromfield's National Arts Honor Society at a before-school meeting on Sept. 15. The presentation was arranged by art teacher Sharon Chandler Correnty.

The project grew out of films that Ansin made in 2003, when he was still in high school, Ansin told the students. He began with promotional videos for non-profit groups such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the Vietnam Veterans of America. He continued to work on films while studying creative writing in college.

In 2010, a non-profit organization called 1for3.org, which supports clean-water projects, asked Ansin to make a documentary film of its project in Rwanda. Ansin had doubts.

"I was a white guy drinking bottled water making a film about water purification there," he said.

Moreover, it would be hard to film the long, slow process of bringing clean water to the town. Instead, he offered to set up photography workshops for local residents, so that they could document the project themselves.

Standing before the Bromfield students, Ansin called up another image on his laptop.

"This is the first time pure water has come out of this faucet," he said, showing them a picture taken by one of the Rwandan participants in the project. "There's no way a New York Times photographer would be there for this."

Ansin explained that EPHAS finds inexpensive cameras for its projects through online discount sites and similar sources. After the initial workshop, EPHAS leaves enough supplies (batteries, printer, paper) to carry the new photographers for about four months.

"Technology has made our system possible," he said, "because there's no need for a darkroom any longer."

EPHAS was formally incorporated in June 2010 and was approved as a tax-exempt charity by that September, according to its website. Asked how he was able to move so rapidly from a high-school project to an organization with worldwide connections, Ansin downplayed the difficulty.

"I've been around boards of directors and organizations since I was 11," he said. His grandfather, Harvard resident Ronald Ansin, has long been a noted philanthropist, supporting a range of educational and charitable institutions in the area.

EPHAS has held workshops in Haiti, Rwanda, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, and the Cayman Islands, and expects to start work in South Sudan next month. In each locale, EPHAS works with a hosting organization such as Habitat for Humanity in Haiti, the Veterans International Rehabilitation Center in Cambodia, and groups supporting education for street kids in the Dominican Republic.

In the past year, Ansin said, photographers from the EPHAS program have taken more than 90,000 pictures. Many images appear in EPHAS's galleries in Boston, Chicago, New York, and (soon) San Francisco, as well as in its online gallery. When an image sells, EPHAS uses 75 percent of the money to support its photography program and gives 25 percent to the hosting organization in the area where the photo was taken.

Ansin explained that buyers sometimes use the images to make greeting cards or calendars, which help to support EHPAS and spread the word about its efforts.