What we do
Our work and initiatives fall under 4 strategic pillars that guide our work:
- Building the ecosystem of narrative changemakers: We have started working to identify narrative changemakers on the continent e.g. producers, writers, platform owners, advocacy groups. Once our landscaping is complete, we will start connecting, networking and support this community through convenings and capacity building.
- Grantmaking: We support content creators (storytellers) and media platforms through our grantmaking. To date, we have launched a number of call-outs for emerging creatives and media platforms with a series of grants ranging from USD500 – USD20,000. We will also be launching the 2021 ANF Emerging Artists Fellows Program. ANF has an ambitious media fellows program planned to staff a digital-only, feature news agency supplying African media outlets with stories that showcase creativity, innovation and innovators.
- Advocacy: We are keen to position ourselves as an African narrative watchdog - a central source for tracking, recording, sharing learnings and data around examples of harmful narratives on the continent and attempts to disrupt it.
- Research: Our research agenda is focused on making narrative and the work we do evidence-based, salient and relevant to the African conversations. We have created a research consortium that is doing two things - unpacking narratives about and within Africa and exploring their impact. Facebook has come on board as a member of the research consortium with some funding. We launched the Academic Fellows program to address some of the research questions on narratives, and we are about to commission some polling to understand the impact of narrative
Research
Our reports identify key trends and insights on matters of African narrative and compile them into short, easy to read reports.
Narrative Community Building
There are already individuals and organisations working hard to shift the harmful narratives about the continent. We want to empower them.
Grantmaking
Whoever holds the pen writes the story. We want the pen to be held by Africans storytellers.