My Mark: My City

My Mark: My City was an initiative by UN-Live, the Museum for the United Nations and in this instance was a collaboration that also involved researchers from the Storytelling Academy at Loughborough University and Hope Raisers, a NGO based in the Korogocho informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya that uses the arts and sport to encourage active citizenship amongst young people from the slums. The Storytelling Academy had been working with Hope Raisers on GCRF projects addressing sustainable urban transport in Nairobi and they wished to develop their storytelling activity and develop a digital storytelling studio in the slum. The Storytelling Academy was able to help with this and the studio was launched with this collaboration with UN-Live. Building on The Reasons in the Fens, a public storytelling performance event in Cambridgeshire, that had itself been inspired by a traditional form of community conflict resolution from Sardinia, the team reimagined The Reasons for Nairobi, with a focus on the issues raised by the Dandora Dump Site, which is located nearby and is a source of significant environmental pollution and poor health outcomes, as well as a source of income for many residents. This video is a documentation of the project, including the preparation/rehearsal process and the performance itself, which took place from 19th-21st September 2019.