By Emmanuel Nyatsikor, GNA
Adaklu Kodzobi (V/R), Aug. 13 GNA – Mr Robert Tornu, Community Development Advocate, Programmes and Policy Advisor for Friends of Adaklu (FoA) Wednesday stated that the art of storytelling was a vital cultural pillar that goes far beyond simple entertainment.
He said sadly this art which also acted as an active tool for passing down history, shaping moral values and uniting people “is now missing in our communities.”
Mr Tornu stated this at a workshop organised by the Hidden Story Project for selected pupils of the Adaklu Kodzobi District Assembly Basic School.
Hidden Story Project is a community storytelling initiative designed to create safe spaces for people to share untold personal experiences.
He said to help revive the art of storytelling in schools and communities, The Hidden Story Project, a new initiative that would help rekindle storytelling in Ghanaian communities was being implemented.
Mr Tornu noted that the project was led by Founding Partners, Betsy Benoit, who served as Project Lead and Weston Cox of TomorrowLabs, who served as the Project’s Technology Lead in collaboration with Friends of Adaklu, a local non-government organisation.
He said this new initiative was built around “a simple observation of our lives that are filled with experiences that could become meaningful stories.”
Mr Tornu intimated that people did not see their own experiences that way but through a thoughtful question, conversation or invitation they could look and recognize the story that was there always.
He said the new initiative brought together storytelling, community partnership and multilingual technology to create opportunities for that discovery.
Mr Tornu said through conversation and story discovery workshops, people were encouraged to explore their own experiences, recognize the stories within them and develop the confidence to share those stories.
“The storyteller remains at the centre of the process, deciding what to tell, what to preserve and what, if anything to share beyond their community,” he stated.
irst Pilot of the Project, Mr Tornu announced, would take place at Adaklu Kodzobi in October 2026.
“Elders, teachers and students from Adaklu Kodzobi began joining members from the Project team for conversations about storytelling and the kinds of traditional stories and personal experiences that are-and-are not typically recorded,” he stated.
He said story discovery sessions with students were continuing in advance of the October pilot explaining how questions and conversations could help someone look at an experience from their own life and began to recognize the story within it.
“We have stories about animals, but we don’t tell stories about ourselves,” he noted.
Mr Tornu stated that the Adaklu pilot would build on early conversations as students, teachers, elders and other adults would take part in story discovery workshops and stories that participants chose to preserve may become part of bilingual story anthologies.
He continued that multilingual technology would also be tested in conversations and workshops, exploring how people could participate in the language in which they could not naturally express themselves.
“The Adaklu pilot is not a finished model being brought into the community, it is being built through collaboration and what we learnt from participants and partners of the Project in Ghana will help shape what the Hidden Story Project becomes,” he said.
Mr Tornu stated that Friends of Adaklu is the local partner and Community Liaison, bringing the relationships, local leadership and cultural guidance which were essential to the work in Adaklu.
Also, he said Campfire Tales is the storytelling partner which led the story discovery workshops with TomorrowLabs developing and field-testing the multilingual technology.
Mr Tornu mentioned that Ho Technical University contributed Ghanaian language expertise and supported linguistic and cultural interpretations whilst PROOF, Media for Social Justice served as Fiscal sponsor and Partner.
He said the Project which would be expanded to other communities would help rekindle the spirit of storytelling in Ghanaian communities.
GNA
Edited by Maxwell Awumah/Benjamin Mensah