Storytelling.

Challenge

My passion for youth education and  equality rendered me to venture into a community project start up  and together with a team of twenty young members, we began by carrying out studies on major  contributions towards high rates of school dropout cases especially for girls  within Kajiado county which  is located within the Rift Valley region of Kenya. High rates of school dropouts within the region were  evident and this sparked my interest to gather the team as we worked on finding a solution on curbing  this problem. I began by organizing the team into groups of four with a mission of carrying out surveys in  five different sections within the county. Within a span of one week, only one group had gathered a  little information regarding the subject. Most teams were faced with challenges such as  unresponsiveness and rebellion of community members towards their visit. As the project manager, I  quickly knew that we had to take a different approach.

Selection

With my great expertise in storytelling, I decided to train my fellow team members on its use and  application.  I trained on various methods and techniques such as scenario generation, plays, talk and  images and digital and visual story telling. After the training, we decided to apply scenario generation  method, plays, and talk and images stories. This time round, we split into groups of four but each with a  great storyteller based on an assessment that we carried out.

Application

Through the coordinated process and using the lessons learned, the teams began carrying out their  study within different sections of the county. We applied effective story telling measures such as taking  time to understand the audience, having a clear sequence of events, and giving room for moments of  reflection and feedback, all teams began gaining acceptance within the communities. One common  story told within the five groups was about how our group had earlier ventured into a project whose  focus was on fighting for the rights of disabled youths within the slums of Kibera in Nairobi. As we  progressed with the project, we noticed that most of the youths living with disability would drop out of  the Programme. Within a few weeks, there was not even one disabled person participating in the  project. As the project leader, I decided to visit each of them in their homes and try to understand what  could have been the cause of them pulling out from the project. Based on my study, most felt that there  were so many differences between them and the rest of the team members hence they felt left out as  we participated in most activities of the project. Our conclusion was that we needed to first ensure  there was inclusivity of every person in each activity of the project. This forced us to put the project on  hold as we tried to source for materials for the disabled youths to use as they partake in various  activities such as presenting and holding meetings with stakeholders.

Insight and Approach

With a clearer picture of what to expect, the project is set to begin within a few months’ time. After  sharing the measures, we intend to take with the youths who had dropped out of the Programme, most

have registered to join again. They have also been key in coming up with the ideas of making the  Programme better.

My conclusion was that feedback was an essential aspect that neither us nor the community members  could overlook. Having started by telling this story in every visit we made opened up the community  members to share their expectations, their cultural practices which differed with most of ours and their  wishes as we progressed with the project within the community. Putting into consideration the  feedback given, we were able to receive so much help from the community especially in relation to  cultural practices that affected education. Some of these were early marriages and FGM practices for  the girls forcing them to drop out of schools. Such were considered sensitive topics within the  community. However, we managed to gather information as well as train the community for example  through plays and skits that trained on the importance of education for every child.

Having discovered how important storytelling is for our projects, as we progress, I intend to build more  on the entire team’s capacity regarding storytelling.  We will also source for two experts for a coaching  session on the topic. I noticed some of my team members would struggle with having to remain patient  as they interact with people who were a bit reserved in giving information hence empathy will also be  greatly taught and emphasized on as we dive into our next phase of the project.

