Passo a Passo: Nossa Estórias (Step by Step: Our Stories)

CMFD conducted four workshops in which participants from each community recorded and produced personal narratives about their experiences with landmines. According to the organisers, the digital story approach is ideal as it allows those who have been affected to offer a “warning' to others. Because people are listening to people who are very much like them, they can learn from others' experiences. It is also a way to remind the government or organisations who need to care for landmine survivors about those affected by landmines.

With CMFD equipment, participants recorded their stories, as they saw fit, in their own words, and in their own languages. Part of this process was to ensure that the stories reflect different aspects of landmines, for example:

• living with a disability;
• loss of agricultural land and livelihood;
• growing up without a father because of landmines; or
• positive impacts of mine clearance operations.

During the workshops people usually shared their stories first and then used images to develop and assist with their storytelling. This included drawing images or using a digital camera that CMFD had on hand. For example, a person who lost family to a landmine may opt to take an image of an item that used to belong to that person or someone may choose to photograph crops to talk about the land being lost to landmines. Another may choose to draw a memory from the past. The process also encouraged all of the participants to be mutually supportive as these stories where sometimes painful.

An assistant helped participants synchronise the images with their voices. The final stories where then viewed by participants on the last day of the workshop. CMFD then copied and separated the audio from the audio visual story, edited the voice for sound quality, and produced the audio for radio stations to broadcast on air. As much as possible, CMFD invited representatives from nearby radio stations to participate, to develop short spots and reports related to landmines. The various components of the project were packaged for distribution to 30 radio stations in landmine affected areas across Mozambique.

Click here to view some of the digital stories on the CMFD website.

Conflict

The objective of this initiative was to give a voice to those most affected by landmines, as a strategy to continue raising awareness about landmines as a challenge in Mozambique. Since many of the most affected areas are away from urban centres, these views and voices are sometimes forgotten.

According to the organisers, the experience was often a transformative one for participants, many of whom had not had the opportunity to tell their stories before, or did not understand the impact their experiences could have on other people. Many participants remarked that they felt relief after telling their stories, and understood now that they were not alone.

Passo a Passo was intended as a follow-up project to the six-part serial radio drama Vila Pisa Bem (Step Well Village) that aimed to raise awareness of issues related to landmines and encourage people to hold government accountable to its commitment to rid Mozambique of anti-personnel mines by 2014.