Author: Lusike

Methodologies for Empowering Small-Scale Farmers with a Chatbot – CAMRI

Winston Mano to join Mozilla project that will create a mobile phone app for Kenyan farmers – CAMRI

Talk Swahili to me: Voice-enabled apps changing the game for farmers and local communities – Common Voice Mozilla

Africa No Filter Inaugurates fellowships to improve Africa’s narratives – November 05, 2020. Businessday

A fellowship program to explore evidence-based narratives about Africa – October 30, 2020. Afriscitech

Debut of augmented reality mural – October 23, 2018. The Hawk Newspaper

Pop Culture that Keeps Women Down – March 7 2010. Standard Media

Presented to Africa No Filter Fellows on 02.26.2021

I was invited to present along with other research mentors at the Africa No Filter Research Fellows workshop held in February 2021.

My presentation was titled: What does it mean to shift the narrative. In this presentation, I drew from the work i have been doing at the Africa Media Collaborative on rewriting African narratives. The Africa Media Collaborative seeks to challenge the prevailing dominant stories about Africa that are often framed by the global news media, films, TV shows, International humanitarian agencies, International charities and foundations, tourists, social media influencers, music and fashion magazines.

While acknowledging that the last few decades have witnessed a rise in counter narratives or competing narratives about Africa, the presentation was driven by the following question: Does the existence of counter narratives about Africa indicate a shift in the narrative?

I argued that there is need to deliberately and consistently work towards eliminating biased, stereotypical, negative dehumanizing stories about Africa and its peoples. The adoption of counter narratives and competing narratives does not indicate a shift in the narrative. It is not enough to counter, we need a shift in the narrative!

In my presentation, I highlighted the model developed by Africa Media Collaborative in shifting the narrative. In order to shift the narrative, the Africa Media Collaborative developed the following three steps:

a) Reframing

b) Disrupting

c) Occupying

During the presentation, I discussed the above model in detail. I will be posting more updates about the project soon. For more information check out Africa Media Collaborative

I have on several occasions, come face to face with stereotypes about Africa, often enabled by global media’s commodification of images about Africa. Often, stories about Africa in the media are about a people who are at war and dying from hunger/famine and diseases such as HIV/Aids.

While Africa might be a continent struggling with challenges such as poverty, ethnic conflicts and HIV/Aids, that is not all there is to Africa. There is much more to Africa than the story of  helplessness and plight. It is a continent full of love and laughter. Music and dance. Emerging innovations and technologies. A people who celebrate life and live it to the fullest. This is the Africa i know. A place that has undergone the ravages of slavery and colonialism, yet it is still filled with undeniable zest for life, love and passion.

And so for those involved in media production and dissemination, there is need for one to be cautious when they write stories about groups of people, particularly the Global South which is portrayed in a stereotypical way in the media.

One video that reminds me about how often people misconstrue Africa is a Ted Talk that was given by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The Danger of a Single Story. Chimamanda talks about how we often dehumanize people when we feel pity for people. We have a single story about them, and fail to recognize that despite their challenges of poverty , they have lived experiences.

The disparities in access to education all over the world are worrying. Education is crucial in empowering the future generations.

There is need for children to have a better education which offers them opportunities to information access and digital literacy in today’s world. However, access to Computers is not enough, there is need for digital literacy for young people to be able to access relevant information and not just access information on varied media platforms but also to be able to write their own stories using different media formats

However, it is important to reemphasize that: It will  all start with access to education.

I came across the interesting video below on the UNESCO instagram page.

The workshop was jointly organized by the University of Westminster and Moi University in collaboration with UK-Africa Media and Democracy Research Network.

The workshop was part of an on-going project on Media and Democracy in Africa, which was funded by the British Academy. It was held at the Sarova Stanley, Nairobi on 9^th May 2014.

See workshop program below: