From July 8th to 9th, LBx Africa was honored to be part of the Climate StroryLab Africa and add our voice to the conversation. It is very critical for creatives and filmmakers to be part of climate communication because we need the best storytelling for this message to achieve its full potential.
Climate Storylab is contributing to this by catalyzing the most compelling media projects being made right now toward big impact, and boldly re-imagining how we can connect the energy revolution to African audiences.
For this edition, we curated a ‘Creatives Roundtable’ session with Climate Storylab to explore ways in which we can answer questions such as,
‘How does storytelling simplify complex theories for impact?’, ‘How can storytellers rise to the challenge of the climate narrative?’ and ‘How can we forge traditionally unlikely partnerships for impact?’
The panel included Sam Soko from LBx Africa, Zeynab Wandati, a journalist from NTV, Laissa Malih, Filmmaker, and Sammy Thuo, Director, Saracen OMD.
The 3 key issues that came out of the conversation are:
1. How can we fix the disconnect in expectations between NGO’s on the ground and storytellers/filmmakers so as to engage the local communities in solutions and drive the right narrative?
2. Zeynab Wandati brought out the media perspective and challenged both media houses and the NGOs working on climate change to not only highlight stories from a negative perspective but also focus on the solutions and successful research in the climate sector.
3. Another challenge for filmmakers and storytellers that came out during the roundtable was how we can communicate climate change in a way that local communities can understand, for example, using words like ‘rising temperatures’ instead of ‘global warming'.
1. How can we fix the disconnect in expectations between NGO’s on the ground and storytellers/filmmakers so as to engage the local communities in solutions and drive the right narrative?
2. Zeynab Wandati brought out the media perspective and challenged both media houses and the NGOs working on climate change to not only highlight stories from a negative perspective but also focus on the solutions and successful research in the climate sector.
3. Another challenge for filmmakers and storytellers that came out during the roundtable was how we can communicate climate change in a way that local communities can understand, for example, using words like ‘rising temperatures’ instead of ‘global warming'.
Climate Story Lab Africa is part of Climate Story Labs Global and is presented by Docubox and supported by the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, Christian Aid and Doc Society.