Storying Our Futures: climate resilience through indigenous knowledge is a British Council funded international collaboration project, produced by Adverse Camber, with partner ICPAC (IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre) which is based in Nairobi and works across East Africa. The aim of the project is to discover how storytelling can best serve the people and lands experiencing the worst impacts of climate crisis in the border territories of the Horn of Africa. Working together to look at how storytelling meets the challenges of our climate emergency.

Project co-leads were Hannah McDowall and Cath Heinemeyer, and producer was Naomi Wilds of Adverse Camber.

We met South Sudanese journalist Joseph Ngor Deng, and learned about Rainmakers, indigenous traditional knowledge holders who help communities with limited access to meteorology prepare for the weather. Joseph attended rainmakers’ meetings in his community and created a live broadcast in Dinka, one of South Sudan’s languages, for community radio stations.

Nairobi based storyteller John Mukeni Namai and Scottish/Kenyan storyteller Mara Menzies joined the project in May 2022. They interviewed Joseph about his research and travelled with ICPAC on a field trip to Turkana and Western Pokot, in Northern Kenya. The storytellers, on their own voyage of discovery, helped the ICPAC team to gather video and audio footage, talked to communities who are being impacted by the current long-term drought, and thought about ways to share the stories of their experiences.