By Augustine Mustapha Mulai, YES Sierra Leone '12 alumni

After participating in the Africa Regional Digital Storytelling Project in Accra, Ghana this past May, I, along with six other YES Sierra Leone alumni (Ishmael Sheriff, Amadu Kabia, Abdulai Fofanah, Sidique Bayoh, Isha Bangura and Fatu Musu Jambawai), was inspired to share my experiences and pass on my new skills to other young people in our community. We did this by holding a five-day digital storytelling workshop for 36 students, including those involved with iEARN through other programs, from August 18th-22nd, at the iEARN office, Stadium Hostel.

During the interactive workshop, we instructed the students on how to perform videography, photography, journalistic activities such as interviewing and story writing, as well as video production. 

They went out into the city to take pictures and videos that captured the problems surrounding our environmental sanitation system and later shared them with each other. We also divided them into groups to do some interview exercises. They interviewed each other about the effects of poor environmental sanitation in the slum area of Freetown, Sierra Leone. They also wrote some stories about such effects as the cholera and malaria outbreak here in Sierra Leone.  

The workshop was a real success, as one student noted:

“I am very happy to attend such a workshop, because it is my first time attending such a program. I appreciate the efforts made by the YES alumni and their contribution towards my future. I hope that they will continue to conduct such workshops because they bring hope and success into the lives of young people in Sierra Leone.” 

My hope is that the students, now equipped with these new skills, will reach out to others in their communities and teach them how to participate in activities surrounding journalism as well.

My focus now, along with Ishmael and other alumni, will be to probe deeper into the issue of environmental health sanitation and implement a project that will sensitize the public and our community about the effects of poor environmental sanitation. We will go to radio stations and visit people living in the slum area on weekends to talk to them, since not everybody has access to radio and television.

I am grateful for the experience of having led the digital storytelling workshop. Not only did the participants gain new skills and self-confidence; I did too. I can now say that I am a leader.