Spotlight Story

Mwana Alirenji Food Security Project (European Union)

In January 2008, Story Workshop began Mwana Alirenji, a E1.239 million large-scale new project funded by the European Union. The project will span Malawi and run for 42 months, focusing on Food Security, using village festivals, a radio magazine broadcasts and Video documentaries.

The main activity of the campaign will be the Food Security Festivals in 78 villages across Malawi; to improve environmental sustainable farming, increase capacity and improve health. These festivals will involve a Story Workshop team traveling to a village and staying in the community for several days. The first 15 villages visited will be existing sites for Story Workshop clubs and thereafter it is hoped that villages across Malawi will nominate themselves for participation.

The Story Workshop team will provide the village with a ‘menu’ of potential activities for the community, of which they will choose a few to address their specific needs. A village goal will be decided between the Story Workshop team and the village, for example to expand the range of crops produced, and this goal will be used to formulate a community plan over the festival.

There will be theatre for development performances throughout and instructional videos showing from a video van that becomes a mobile cinema. During the festival, an episode of the Mwana Alirenji radio magazine will also be recorded, profiling that village and enabling others to learn from those experiences.

By the end of the festival, in addition to the sense of ownership and co-operation resulting from shared activities, the village will have learned how to address a food security challenge that they are facing, develop a plan, to cooperate as a community, to find support for plan implementation and to carry out the plan in a spirit of self-reliance.

In addition to this, Story Workshop will produce three series of five advocacy radio debates. The radio debates will address policy issues that affect small-holder farmers and will also be the subject of media contests for journalists of all media, increasing coverage of issues.