Malawi Folklore Database Project

Explore the website here: https://malawifolklore.mw/

Over several years, Rei Foundation has collaborated with the Malawi National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU), the Malawi National Library Service (NLS), Sony and Music Crossroads Malawi (MCM) to travel across Malawi and document how communities perform folktales and folk songs. These projects have produced hundreds of audio and video recordings of stories and folk songs in languages spoken across Malawi. These recordings are the cultural property of the Malawian people, held collectively for public benefit . A new website, launched on 9 October 2024, shares them with the people of Malawi and positions itself as the country's first major resource of local knowledge available to the wider public.

In 2023, as part of efforts to share these materials, MNCU, NLS and MCM went on a 13 district outreach tour across Malawi, screening the folk tales and stories in villages where the team originally documented them. The tour drew large numbers of villagers and the partners hope to run more such tours to continue sharing information in this way. These tours are a great opportunity to reconnect with communities who contributed to the project (particularly in remote areas with limited access to internet), but they can only reach part of the population; the new website will make this folklore accessible to a wider audience and support people to undertake their own research and exploration. 

The website activates Malawi’s intangible cultural heritage through sharing the folktale and folksong videos that were captured. A task force of people from NLS, MNCU and MCM in Malawi and Rei Foundation and design agency Alt Group in Aotearoa planned the website, and following the planning phase, Auckland-based web agency Cactuslab developed it.. Together, this collaboration resulted in a vibrant website that is culturally appropriate and fun to explore. For those without suitable devices to access this resource, a number of access points have been created in NLS branches in Lilongwe, Blantyre, Mzuzu and Zomba. Additional access is available at MCM’s and MNCU’s headquarters in Lilongwe, where computers will be made available for the public to view the database.

The website presents the videos in a sophisticated way to enable people to find exactly what they are looking for and also to explore the materials creatively. Users can filter content by type (songs or stories), keyword, location, name of the performer and characters. They can also toggle between Chichewa, Kiswahili and English. There is even an option to explore via pictures, great for kids and people who prefer visuals. Strong colour contrast and large typography also increase accessibility for users, but the project team plans to work with the Malawi Council of Disability Affairs (MACODA) to make the site even more accessible.

Across the site, a broad range of folk stories and folk songs spans the whole country and touches on a huge variety of topics. However, not all the videos collected in the documentation projects will be available online: the community will of necessity keep some knowledge within the community and this will not be shared with the general public.

Through the Malawi Folklore website, the people of Malawi can access and learn from their own cultural heritage. The website can be enjoyed by a diverse audience, including artists, researchers, writers, folklorists, students, teachers, musicians, actors, documentarists, along with the general public in Malawi and further afield. 

While the website will allow far more people to access this heritage, internet access remains unreliable in parts of Malawi. Therefore the project team has devised additional methods to share the recordings, including an offline version to be available in 2026 at selected public libraries and other access points across Malawi.

Explore the website here: https://malawifolklore.mw/