Storytelling at Dzaleka

We each carry our culture wherever we go, but sometimes it needs a little help to come alive. This is the motivation for the Storytelling Project, an inclusive mission to reinforce cultural identities of residents in Dzaleka refugee camp in Dowa, Malawi by documenting and sharing traditional folktales from older residents with younger ones. Rei Foundation has partnered with local community arts organisation Tumaini Letu and MNCU to develop this project, which is in keeping with UNESCO’s emphasis on the safeguarding of traditional cultural knowledge and stories in communities of displaced people.

Over forty participants were recruited from the camp and surrounding villages and trained with the skills needed to inventory, record, transcribe and perform traditional stories from people of different ethnic backgrounds living in Dzaleka camp. Interviewers went out into the camp to meet with elders, recording stories from several different cultural groups, and these stories will be transcribed and added to the national inventory of folk stories, preserving the intangible heritage of Dzaleka residents.

Of the collected stories, several were chosen for development of performances. A group of actors were trained by local storyteller Shadreck Chikoti. Shortly the gathered stories will be brought to life in a series of folktales sessions for local school children both inside and outside Dzaleka. Tumaini Letu are doing an excellent job of collecting and performing stories in a complicated environment.

One of the biggest successes has been the discovery of young artists who have showed an interest in performing the traditional stories to school children. Another success has been the response of the older generation, many of whom had previously thought that their children and grandchildren had no interest in their folktale tradition and their heritage in general, and have found, through this project that the opposite is true.