On May 22nd, 2018, the Ubongo team collaborated with Well Told Story (creators of Shujaaz) to facilitate an interactive workshop for HDIF’s 2018 Innovation Week. During the workshop, both organisations shared insights on the role that storytelling has played in making their innovations impactful to millions of families across East Africa. Moreover, they gave the audience practical advice on how to create stories that reach their target audience and lead to behaviour change. And emphasised the importance of having a user-centred approach to creating messaging for social behaviour change in any demographic.
Participants working on their stories and media plans
The presentation was complemented by a fun activity, where different groups had to create stories and messaging for a particular audience; for instance “how do you increase HIV testing amongst young adolescents” and “how do you encourage parents to stop beating their children”. The groups not only designed the messaging, but also created media dissemination plans, and made samples of their work – which included recording radio skits, acting out TV public service announcements, and developing creative briefs for social media outreach campaigns.
Innovation week ( May 21 – May 26 ) is a collaborative and creative showcase of cool and exciting projects that improve the lives of Tanzanians. In 2017, HDIF collaborated with 16 partners to curate a series of interactive events for over 1,000 people in Dar es Salaam. This year they had over 24 partners who organised events that explored innovation in research, development, entrepreneurship, technology and design across three sectors: health, education, and water/sanitation/hygiene.
