Can a camera be a tool for peacebuilding? And can change begin with something as small as a group of students coming together to take pictures not of what separates them but of what bonds them as human beings—simple things like the dawn, kids on a playground, or a sports tournament?

This past September, these questions were put into practice in South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, which has been embroiled in bitter ethnic conflict since December 2013. National Geographic Photo Camp, in partnership with Internews, put cameras in the hands of 20 communications students at the University of Juba. Equal numbers of men and women, representing a cross-section of tribes, spent six days with National Geographic photographers