Picture it is part of PrisonWatch Advice that was established by Femke van der Meulen in 2003. The dictionary Picture it in Prison was developed after Femke finalised her PhD-research Detained Abroad in 2015. The dictionary was provided as a gift to Dutch nationals detained in over a hundred different countries in order to thank them for the cooperation in the research.
The dictionaries are sold at cost-price. In the case of a large order (> 500 copies) any profit will be transferred to the foundation PrisonWatch.
The picture dictionaries have been used in various prisons and institutions around the world. Consular staff of Dutch diplomatic missions hand over the dictionary to Dutch nationals in foreign detention who are unable to communicate. Foreign national prisoners in Luxemburg and in Belgium received the picture dictionary in 2017. The dictionary is furthermore used in several prisons in Germany, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.The images of Picture it in Migration were made available, free of charge, for the Refugee Buddy App that was developed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for refugees in 2016.
