Reel News: Young Creatives from Kenya & The UK Collab in 'Digital Storytelling' Project

Storytelling in contemporary times is driven by tech and these advances have enabled youth in Kenya to work with their counterparts across continents to tell their stories in digital form.

The Youthful Cities Digital Storytelling Lab is a unique creative development programme that has brought together a team of young creatives - filmmakers, digital artists, writers, musicians and changemakers from Nairobi and Coventry - in a cultural and creative skills exchange to develop two new digital stories designed to inspire change within their cities.

The Nairobi and Coventry teams worked together to create interactive short-films 'Our Daily Bread' and a spatial audio experience titled 'Now That I Know Things'. The works will premiere on BBC Taster from 28 April, after which they will be available to experience on the website that showcases the organisation's immersive and interactive experiences, encouraging users to share what they've just tried with their friends.

Kenyans involved in the project include Millan Tarus, Tracy Mwaura, Mike W. Khakame, Analo Kanga, Naserian Koikai and Precious Narotso. James Grubb, Lanaire Aderemi, Demy Jozeph and Michael Mihoc are from Coventry.

Check out a summary of the films below:

'Our Daily Bread' made using BBC R&D StoryFormer explores different city themes and how they impact a young individuals' mental health state whilst going through the hurdles of job hunting. In this experience, audiences can make choices about how the story unfolds and move between scenes set in Nairobi and those set in Coventry.

'Now That I Know Things', made using BBC R&D's Audio Orchestrator, follows the range of thoughts, feelings and experiences of the characters of Aisha in Nairobi and Sara in Coventry as they navigate their graduation days. The project uses connected smart devices; laptops, tablets and phones to deliver an immersive audio experience that listeners can explore.

Both teams worked collaboratively and remotely, through various stages of lockdown and you can get to see what it took to bring this project to life.