Blog: Story of the week - Hoofdinhoud

Bringing storytelling to development

I wanted to share a new initiative with you which is a bit of a different approach to the way we communicate on development, and which caught my eye this week.

As part of the work around the European Year for Development (which as I'm sure you've seen, was launched in Riga last week by President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker), a 'Story of the Week' will be produced by DG International Cooperation and Development throughout 2015. Each week will bring one of our EU projects to life by telling the human story around it - how it has improved someone's life, what their situation was like before, and what their personal feeling is about the project.

I really like this approach and think that it's high time we focus on the human side of our work - all too often in development we talk about facts and figures, and money spent, but rarely focus on how our work is changing people's lives on the ground (which is fundamentally what our work is all about, after all!)

There will be a new story each week available at the European Year for Development website and social media channels. You can read the first one, about a coffee project in Eritrea already: https://europa.eu/eyd2015/en/european-commission/stories/week-1-cultivating-progress-farming-eritrea

I'd be interested in hearing your views on whether you think this 'storytelling approach' works too!