I got a call just the other day from a woman in Bombay who I’ve done copywriting projects for over the last several years – most recently, a branding exercise for a start-up organic milk company in Bangalore. She said that there was a new show coming to India, called MTV Nishedh (meaning ‘taboo’), that aimed to tackle issues surrounding sexual and reproductive health amongst youth in India. She was looking for someone to write a pitch for the show’s logo design and brand campaign. As she messaged, I did a quick internet search and sat back in my chair smiling: my suspicions were confirmed, and things had come around full circle.
Nine years ago, I had returned from Paris to Nairobi to research and write my MA thesis on the inherent power of narrative to inculcate social change. MTV Shuga had just taken college students by storm, featuring the now Oscar-award winning Lupita N’yongo, and having been partly shot at the university where I had done my undergraduate degree in Journalism. It had now arrived in India. I agreed to write the pitch – because I am still intrigued by the same questions and concepts. All these years later, the solutions regarding social and economic development, global progress, and how we can contribute to it, are still opaque. In fact, the questions have gotten more complex, and the answers more ambiguous. But I haven’t stopped searching.
My journey since graduating from AUP has taken me through different non-profit contexts in Kenya, India and Afghanistan. I started out at Video Volunteers, a community media and human rights organisation based in Goa which empowers marginalised people to tell their stories. During the three years I was associated with them, I trained tribal activists and extremely poor women to be video journalists, edited their videos into short news bytes, published them on IndiaUnheard, an online channel, and worked to get impact through community activism at the local governance level. I travelled to remote parts of India to recruit community correspondents, worked on pan-Indian campaigns against untouchability, and videos that I’d edited were screened at major festivals in Goa and abroad for fundraising purposes. I overcame language barriers and began to learn about the unique issues that continue to be faced by millions of Indians, and became a passionate follower of inspiring women like Arundhati Roy.
From there, I went on to freelance as a writer and video editor, and worked on multiple projects for a mixture of both commercial and non-profit entities, as well as dabbled in video art. One of my videos, Fjaka, was shown at the Boom Festival in Barcelona, and though I never got to see it there, I was happy my work had reached that far. I had first learnt how to edit videos in a darkened studio at the American University of Paris, and through the MAGC NGO practicum in Morocco. I had always loved the artistic aspect of it, and commitment to the skill only grew through the years that followed.
I then went on to work for a large regional South Indian NGO that dealt with community driven development models in safe drinking water, women’s empowerment, organic farming, and education. While living at their training centre in a small town 150km away from Hyderabad for 1.5 years, I helped revamp their communications materials, created brand new publications and assisted with website content. At the end of my tenure, I helped organise a pioneering conference on CSR and social entrepreneurship in Hyderabad, for which I also designed the logo, name and concept.
Afghanistan was next. A strange wish to go and work there was finally realised, as I found an opportunity to help an Afghan entrepreneur establish a new technology news portal. During the six months I was there, we gathered content, designed a beta site, formed a network of individuals and institutions in Kabul, and set up a video studio. I also helped the company organised a first-of-its-kind conference on women and tech where, amongst other tasks such coordinating the PR and media coverage of the event and being a panel leader, I also drafted the speech points for the then First Lady of Afghanistan. On the side, I graduated from Founder Institute’s local chapter after a six-month intensive course in tech entrepreneurship.
Today, I am on the cusp of a great personal and professional shift. I will complete three years at the Aga Khan Academy Hyderabad in July 2019, where I have been working as Communications Specialist. An agency of the Aga Khan Development Network, the school has a social mission to educate the most gifted and talented of children, regardless of their social background. Whilst here, I have successfully built resilient models of communications across a wide spectrum that includes the website and social media, publications, PR, visual identity and branding, events and collateral, stakeholder communications and most recently, working closely with the Director of External Affairs towards fundraising for scholarships and sustainability.
In August 2019, my path takes me back to East Africa, where I grew up. I will be transitioning into a role with an agricultural foundation that aspires to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the continent by empowering them to be self-sufficient businessmen and women. A few months ago, I visited one of their farm sites in Tanzania and returned thoroughly inspired; and produced a brochure and impact assessment paper for them.
It is at this crucial junctures, as I look forward to a new chapter, that I also paradoxically review the trajectories and phases of my professional path thus far. There is no doubt that the education I received at the American University of Paris, funded partially through a CECI grant, was instrumental in getting me where I am today. There, I learnt not just the skills of my trade but how to think critically and independently; how to express myself creatively; and most importantly, how I could use what I gained there to contribute to the people and organisations I went on to work with – people and organisations that shared the aspirations of a better world.
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