By Johanna Mack
Filling a gap in journalism education, empowering young media makers, and sparking social change in the process: These are the goals of the Storylab project, which was launched by members of the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS). Where curricula are often theoretical and media outlets struggle with economic difficulties and media capture, Storylab aims to open up new opportunities. In an interview with EJO, founder Andrew Kaponya tells the story of the project, his plans and challenges. The researcher and educator also explains why he believes that creating new narratives is essential to spark positive change in countries like Malawi.
Johanna Mack: What is the idea behind the creation of Storylab?
Andrew Kaponya: Storylab emerged from the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Economics and Applied Sciences in Malawi. As a university, our mission is not only to teach, build knowledge, and disseminate it. It is also about reaching out to society and connecting our students with the population and the media industry.
Storylab is, as the name suggests, a laboratory. Our friends in the natural sciences have laboratories where they mix chemicals and develop projects. For journalism, we now also have a laboratory where we research and create stories, and these are not just for their own sake, but also serve to bring about social and behavioral change.
How does Storylab work?
Andrew Kaponya is the founder and coordinator of Storylab and a lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences.
He has been working in the industry for over 15 years and has held various positions in the commercial sector as head of marketing and communications, and later in the NGO sector as a programmer for development communication. He has served as a policy and communications advisor in the office of the Vice President of Malawi, as commissioner for the National AIDS Commission (NAC), and as a board member of the Malawi Post Corporations.
We accept journalism and communication students, but also students from other disciplines, practicing journalists, and young people who are simply interested in creating stories across different platforms. They complete a training course in storytelling for social change. Some of the lecturers come from the university, others from outside the university. We make sure to bring together people from the industry who have specific storytelling skills.
After the training, we divide the students into groups, which we call lab sessions. In each group, they choose an area that interests them. We have groups that want to tell stories on topics such as climate change, reproductive health, good governance, migration, entrepreneurship, and many other topics. The young people research their areas of interest and find areas where they think they can tell stories.
Here is an example on the topic of migration, where the participants developed an interesting story: You know, Malawi is generally not an attractive destination for migrants. It is a country that young people want to leave. Due to economic hardship, they are no longer proud to be in Malawi. Interestingly, now, in a country where people seem to have lost hope and want to give up, people from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Ethiopia are leaving their own countries and coming to Malawi.
Because Malawi is a peaceful country?
Yes, but there is no war in South Africa or Zambia either. Zambia is a relatively attractive destination. The question this group is asking is why they are interested in coming to Malawi. When they come to Malawi, they start doing business and they thrive, so you wonder why.
Why can’t we, the people of the country, see the opportunities? We want to leave our country, and yet others come to the same country and thrive. Perhaps this is a story that can make us think and highlight areas where we can make a difference. Maybe it’s just a question of mindset that there are no opportunities.
Another example: a group is currently working on a podcast about life at university. You know, student life at university in Malawi is miserable. I wish you could see it, it’s pathetic. You look at their living conditions and so many other situations they experience – and that doesn’t motivate anyone to learn or even go to university in the first place. For their podcast, the students came up with the idea of telling stories and reaching out to society and leaders: We are at university, but look at how we live right now.
How does Storylab contribute to journalism education in Malawi?
If you look at our journalism education in Malawi, the curricula are very theoretical. It can happen that a student graduates without any significant practical skills, without knowing how to work in radio or how to develop a story for radio, television, newspapers, and other media and channels. So Storylab first and foremost creates an opportunity for these students. Now we have this platform where they can really practice, where they can learn how to research, develop, and then disseminate a story idea.
In addition, stories in Malawi are not told in their entirety. When you watch TV, listen to the radio, or read the newspaper, you see gaps in the story, missing perspectives, and the question is why? You realize that we have journalists who are politically involved, for example, so they can’t tell certain stories properly or completely.
Another reason is the lack of resources. Even if I want to tell a complete story, the media company I work for often doesn’t have the resources to do so. Journalists are focused on meeting deadlines. They can’t spend three months following a story or tackle a topic that requires collaboration with journalists in other countries, for example.
Story Lab is a place where we can take our time to look at a story. How do we tell a complete story from all perspectives? How do you take yourself out of a story? How do you convey the facts? Because when I’m following a story that affects my political group, I still have to tell it independently. So we believe that Story Lab will improve the quality of storytellers. They will improve their research, the creation and preparation of stories.
More importantly, research on migration, the environment or climate change is often unattractive to journalists. Journalists are drawn to party politics, and as a result, issues such as migration, refugees, and climate change do not receive the attention they deserve from journalists. With Storylab, we are creating a parallel storytelling platform and saying to the media: Okay, if you can’t tell the stories about climate change or migration properly, we are here to tell them. Maybe some media outlets don’t want to tell them because there are no brown envelopes in these stories. But at Storylab, we don’t need brown envelopes. Our motivation is a story that touches the life of someone somewhere in a rural area, somewhere in remote Malawi.
Is participation in Storylab a voluntary offer that students can take advantage of as part of their studies? How does it work?
The motivation for the students is that we offer something that the classroom cannot. We fill a very important gap in their learning environment. They come voluntarily to learn how to write and share stories, and in doing so, they learn something that the professor in the classroom has not covered due to the curriculum and time constraints.
In addition, the curriculum lacks specialization. I think the motivation for students to join Storylab is also to find a unique area of expertise in which they can specialize, learn about it comprehensively, and practice journalistic skills.
We, the project managers, also work on a voluntary basis. We don’t get any benefits from it, and the university isn’t obligated to pay us for the extra time. Our motivation is to see these young people acquire the necessary skills—watching them succeed puts a smile on our faces. Not that we don’t want to be paid for it, but our university can’t afford it.
I see – so it’s really a question of commitment on the part of the project leaders, the organizers, and also the students. You also mentioned that Storylab tries to fill gaps in media coverage. Does the project work with the media? Are Storylab’s results published on the radio, in newspapers, or on television, for example?
Storylab hasn’t been around for very long. It’s a new idea and we’ve just trained the first cohort. The students create stories using art, such as theater, but also traditional media, such as TV documentaries and radio programs. The plan is that, in addition to the platforms we will create ourselves, we will also involve media companies and suggest to them: Look, we have content on this topic. Can we use your channels?
We know it will be a challenge because of the culture we have here. The media might say, “Oh, you’re not one of us, so why should we run your stories?” Okay, but we’ll involve them anyway. We’ll find out what works.
MUBAS recently got a campus radio station. Unfortunately, it’s not well equipped. We’ll use this radio station and can broadcast via social media platforms such as Facebook. We also use other forms such as theater. We have to go to the villages and perform a story written by students.
Why did you decide to include art and theater alongside traditional journalistic media?
That’s a very interesting question. I think that theater has historically played a central role in storytelling in Malawi. People are very attached to theater. We have learned about many things that have happened in the country through theater. Even politics in Malawi has changed through theater, and it has also contributed to so many other developments by spreading stories about diseases, vaccines, and the like.
In addition, 70% of Malawi’s population lives in rural areas. These people have no access to traditional media. They have no access to newspapers, radio, or television. It is a poor society. And how do we reach them? People listen to local radio stations, of course, but not all the time. Theater is one of the means of breaking through these economic and educational barriers.
If we limit ourselves to traditional media, we won’t reach 70% of the population. So we have to decide whether we also want to address these hard-to-reach groups or focus exclusively on those who are better off. With Storylab, we want to reach them all, because we believe that we cannot leave this 70% of the population behind. If we ignore and reject them, then journalism is not fulfilling its purpose.
Okay. You’ve already mentioned a few examples of topics Storylab is working on and how they can be brought closer to the audience. How will these stories contribute to social change?
We want to see changes in society and in people’s behavior. There are so many things we believe need to be changed in our communities. Due to the standard of education in the country, we are faced with problems related to awareness of certain issues, knowledge, and attitudes.
Let me give you an example: during the COVID-19 pandemic, to get people to simply put on a mask, you would probably have had to point a gun at them because they don’t believe in the importance of these things. In Malawi, there are many misconceptions about all kinds of things.
Or take climate change: if you tell people that the food insecurity we are experiencing today is due to changing climate patterns, very few will understand what you are talking about. For our societies to gradually change, we need to meet them halfway with better education and information that challenges these deeply rooted norms, attitudes, and the like.
How does Storylab intend to achieve this?
It has to start with creating stories that are relevant and challenge these misconceptions. In Malawi, we believe that stories are very powerful in changing our communities. Very, very powerful. When we talk about vaccinations, we tell a story about how important they are.
Another example: in Malawi, we have many challenges related to reproductive health, and we also have many deaths related to childbirth. In other countries, pregnancy is not a problem at all; women can give birth to their children in a very safe hospital environment. Here, there are mothers who cannot go for prenatal care. And when you ask them why not, they don’t give a proper explanation. We need to reach these people with well-thought-out, evidence-based stories….
…and it’s probably also important not to tell these stories from a position of superiority, right? Not told by someone who doesn’t understand their reality.
Exactly, there’s this concept of whose reality counts. We want first-hand stories, we research where the narrative comes from, from the people who are affected by the problem. Yes, that’s another reason why theater comes into play. We use participatory theater and encourage people who are affected by the problem to perform.
In countries like Malawi, i.e., in the least developed countries, the way we tell our stories needs to change above all else. I’m sure we’re not doing this country justice when it comes to how we tell stories about our situation.
What do you mean?
I mean that you don’t get a clear picture of our problems in the media because the stories are told in a certain way. I want to emphasize here that perhaps the most important factor in improving our circumstances is not that we need a new president. What we need are stories that reflect people’s reality.
If you ask me, storytelling is the most important investment we need to make in this country. We have problems with our mindset and attitudes, and there are practical shortcomings that can only be changed by telling a good story about our reality.
Am I understanding you correctly: even if, for example, a different president or a new government comes to power, the structural problems may remain? But storytelling can raise awareness among the population, which ultimately forms the majority in the country?
Exactly. Parliamentary elections are coming up in September. And this is a fateful election. This country has been independent for 60 years, but has nothing to show for it. The question is, who should we vote for?
Voting becomes a problem because people don’t know how to vote. This means that some people are not aware of the power of their vote or do not know that they are independent. People suffer from high living costs for five years. Then, shortly before the election, they receive a 20-kg bag of flour from a candidate. And they vote for that person. Do you think that person knows how to vote? They forget the five years and trade their vote for a bag of flour.
I know this is common in many countries, and our politics are also divided along ethnic lines. If I belong to the group of a particular presidential candidate, I vote for that candidate, regardless of whether that person has achieved anything or not. These are some of the things that need to change.
How can we change that? We need to raise awareness. We need to make it clear to our people what is at stake in electing a head of state. We can achieve this through storytelling.
We have a group that is collecting stories for the upcoming elections. We want to tell stories that are aimed specifically at young people, as young people make up a significant percentage of the population.
The more you tell me, the more I am interested in how the media landscape works in Malawi. You used the term “least developed” to describe your country. I wonder what that means for journalism. What does it mean to be a journalist in a country that is considered “least developed”? What is the connection between the situation in the country and media practices?
I think there is a strong connection.
The most important factor is resources. Journalism in developing countries is not easy because you need resources to tell a story. You need equipment, you have to travel. Since people don’t have access to resources, they are taken over by corporations or politicians who say, “Come and tell our stories.” We’ll give you 20,000 kwacha. So they report on something because they get the 20,000 for it.
The problem is huge. We have very talented storytellers and journalists, but they can’t do their job properly because they don’t have the necessary resources. It’s not easy to be a journalist when you’re paid a pittance. In Malawi, journalism is not a career that pays well. That’s why people aren’t motivated to go into it.
Maybe you don’t necessarily get rich from journalism in Germany, but at least you can survive.
You launched Storylab six months ago. What are your hopes and plans for the future?
Our main goal is to be able to tell these stories. But to achieve this goal, we need several things. First, we need experts who can work with us and contribute their expertise in addition to that of my colleagues and myself. Experts in storytelling techniques, but also, if we’re doing a story on migration, for example, we want people who are experts on migration stories.
Second, we need equipment—we want to make podcasts, but we don’t have cameras. If we have our own equipment, such as cameras, laptops, and microphones, we will change this country. But the challenge is that we share resources with regular journalism classes, and the university will naturally give priority to regular journalism classes.
In the future, the project should be able to stand on its own. At the moment, it depends on the commitment of those of us who came up with the idea and agree that we really want this, no matter what the circumstances. We really want this to happen.
This article, “Storylab: How a student project in Malawi is changing reporting“, was originally published by the European Journalism Observatory on April 1 2025.