Hi, welcome to the Kwanza Summit. My name is Princely Glorious. I'm a designer
and storyteller from Tanzania. I'm speaking to you today from Hargeisa in
Somaliland. I'm here in Somaliland as an East Africa Media Lab fellow doing a
storytelling project and Kwanza Africa asked me to speak to you about OnaStories
which is a storytelling platform that I began building about a year ago.
I'm going to play you a little news clip from around the time we started that
explains what OnaStories is and does. "The mass media used to mean teams of
cameramen, politicians and mobs of journalists; but in the 21st century
there's a quieter revolution underway: the global storyteller broadcasting from
a bedroom. OnaStories is a tiny startup with big ambitions
it produces Swahili videos designed for mobile phones and it aims to be part of
an African media Renaissance. "We believe very strongly that that African stories
need to be told from an African perspective; from people with a knowledge
and understanding of the continent. There's a quote from Achebe that says
'Unless the lion tells its own story the story of the hunt will always glorify
the hunter." and so it's our attempt at telling the African story through
mobile video."
And there's a big audience for those stories Tanzania has more than
40 million mobile phone users thirsty for information. More than half of
Tanzanians are under the age of 30, and they are buying mobile phones in their
thousands, spending their time browsing for homegrown content. So these videos
aren't just becoming a form of mass communication: they are challenging the
dominance of newspapers and radio. Ona is the Swahili word for "see" but you
could use it as a verb to say "look." So my sister tells me when we're younger I
used to give her 'information overload.' Every time I'm like "Zoë, ona, ona. Look at this, look
at this, see this, see this. So we decided to package this... I found a great
partner last year and we decided to pack this 'information overload' into an avenue
for African storytelling but I don't want to focus so much about OnaStories.
I want to focus more on YOU, and how you can use storytelling to
advance the narrative of Africa and to shape the way the world thinks and
speaks about our continent.
As young Africans we need to begin staking a claim on the Africa narrative.
For too long our story has been told by others -- and even for others. But we need
to be the generation that looks inside ourselves and finds the stories within
the continent and begins telling these stories; begins shaping the way that the
world thinks and speaks about Africa.
You see for many around the world right now
Africa is the final frontier. It's a place where unsolved problems abound
but within these problems there's boundless opportunity. And so we're seeing people
stream in from the east and from the West. The world is knocking again
Africa's doors, and we are the ones to answer it. We must answer this time with
purpose; with a belief - a supreme confidence - in our abilities to shape our
own future; and with a story that we ourselves have determined.
You see, stories shape the way we live our lives because they shape what we believe.
Almost everything you know is a story that you've been told. Just think about
that: whether it's your personal history, or a collective history - as a people, as a
continent, as the world - almost everything you know is a story that you've been told.
But for a very long time - in fact for most of recorded history -
Africa's story has been told by everyone else!
like Achebe says: "Until the lion tells its story, the version of the story
of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. And the story that's been told
about Africa has been a tale of poverty, of problematic leadership, a lack of history
or heritage, and little in the way of a self-determined future.
This has to change, and we are the ones to change it. You must begin to ask yourself:
How am I contributing to the narrative of Africa? There's never been a time in
history where it's as easy (or easier) to add your voice to the global story.
Digital media - and particularly social media - has really amplified
individual voices, and it may be the greatest opportunity for you to do what
I'm talking about: To shape the narrative about Afric. But you see the challenge
with digital media is that while it has amplified your voice
it's also loudened
the voices of millions of others. You know it sometimes seems as though our
social feeds are just a relentless cacophony of pointless noise. Oh, look at...
my lunch, oh look at my face, oh look at my friends: you know, we're all guilty of
this. In today's digital age, I like to think of almost every one of us as a
media house competing for your time and your attention. But we need to begin
taking the opportunity of digital media a little more seriously. We need to be
more purposeful in finding and telling the stories that we want told about our
continent. Purpose! Instead of just using social media for the thrill of creating
interest in ourselves - you know - for that sweet rush of dopamine that we get when
we hear that ding ding ding of notifications and likes. We need to begin
setting this the agenda for our portions of Africa - we can do that through digital
media, through social media. And we need to begin shaping the perceptions of
people about our continent. So every time that you're looking at your social feed,
every time that you're putting something out there, start asking
yourself: How am I going to shape the narrative about my continent? What is
this adding to the storyline of Africa? Now I want you to challenge yourself. I'd
like you to take all these things that I'm talking about - shaping
and shifting the perception about Africa - a little more as a personal challenge.
So I'll tell you a little story. I arrived in Somaliland about two weeks ago...
and if you take a moment and think about what people think of
Greater Somalia + the Horn of Africa: instability, terror, war... but when I arrived here
what I found was peace and stability and democracy (here in Somaliland, at least)
And so I challenged myself: what simple thing can I do
that will shift the perception or change the storyline of Somaliland in my own little
way. So I went out on the streets with my friend - a street photographer from
Somaliland, Adnan Abdo. I told him: "Adnan, take me around Hargeisa
I want to ask different people from Somaliland what they want to say about
their country that maybe other people from around Africa and
from around the world don't know. And we found seven different things that
we thought you may not know about Somaliland. (((Somaliland is different from
Somalia, in terms of peace and stability and development.
Somalia is democratic.))) (((And the telecoms companies have done fantastically well
here. They have the cheapest calling rates for international calls in the
whole world!)))
(((Hargeysa is a booming city, teeming with life and people. It's a business
center.))) (((So I told Ismail, this camel meat is so good it tastes like
beef. He was like - be careful, don't say that too loudly...
some people won't like hearing that. Because camel meat is better than beef!)))
(((Almost everywhere now is covered in billboards; different political parties
this one's for KULMIYE - the ruling party, which has the same colors as Tanzania's
ruling party: CCM - green and yellow)))
(((This is the game that I will be focusing on... SHAX... did I pronounce it right? *Lady in the BG giggles*)))
You know, when we talk about reshaping the African narrative, it's not going to
be through some large cataclysmic events. No, it's going to be through small
things just like that Instagram story series that we've just looked at:
Seven things you don't know about Somaliland
I got two types of feedback from doing that series. The first kind was from here
in Somaliland I've got hundreds of different messages with people saying
thank you; thank you for talking about Somaliland; thank you for adding a positive
voice about Somaliland; thank you for attempting to shift perceptions about
this country; and the second kind was from Tanzania (where a lot of of my audience)
And from Tanzania I was able to partner with #ElimikaWikiendi
and through them we got a reach of about 400,000 - a little over 400,000 - unique
users looking at this series. And from TZ, the comments
were more like: "oh wow Somaliland is normal! Oh Hargeysa looks just like
Dar es Salaam! Oh there's somebody listening to MIGOS in the car! And it's peaceful,
it's stable. There was a shift in perception from: "oh this is this unstable
terror-driven place, into this normalcy, into this new perception of "oh wow this
place is peaceful and stable and different from what I had imagined"
That's what we're talking about when we say we need to start looking at what
we're putting out there as an opportunity to shape and shift
perceptions about Africa. Somaliland is just like a microcosm - a small example -
of the rest of Africa. Where here people think about it as: "terror" and things like that
most people think of Africa as poor,
bad leadership, mismanagement and corruption
and all these different things. Now what I have been able to do in a small way
for Somaliland, if we all do it for the rest of the continent,
for the different portions of Africa that we're from, we can begin to see an
actual cataclysmic shift - a perception shift -
on how people see and think and react to Africa.
I want to finish off with a quote from Chinua Achebe
who, as you may have noticed, is one of my favorite African thinkers.
He says: if you do not like someone else's story, write your own.
so empowering because it's telling us and it's telling you right now that if
you do not like the story that has been told about our continent if we do not
like the narrative that has been dominant regarding Africa if we do not
like the way that our history has been recorded by others because the way that
that our stories have been told and dominated by people that are not from
the continent instead of wallowing in self defeat or instead of wallowing in
in a sense of hopelessness or a lack of agency we need to start saying that you
know it's time for us to write the story
I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to me today I hope that you
can take what we've discussed over the past few minutes about planing and
reshaping the Africa narrative and putting it into use in your own way
let's start looking at the different digital interactions that we have
through the lens of African story 10 remember that if you do not like the
story that's being told about Africa it's about time that you write your own
thank you
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