Who we are

From left to right: Mathilde Stoetzler (Uganda, Kampala), Jasmin Fobker (Kenya, Nairobi), Daniela Hohwieler (Rwanda, Kigali), Wiebke Erchinger (Ethiopia, Addis Ababa), Patricia Mayer (Kenya, Nairobi), Mareike Burkert (Tanzania, Dar es Salaam), Friederike Sprang (Kenya, Nairobi), Johanna (Uganda, Kampala), Jasmin Goldhausen (Tanzania, Dar es Salaam), Rebecca Fuchs (Uganda, Kampala), Ronda Reiche (Kenya, Nairobi), Anne Katharina Gerstenberg (Rwanda, Kigali)

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story. (…) Many stories matter” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk 2009).

Many Stories is a platform to create another picture of Africa by people themselves telling their own stories.

Instead of reducing social realities and people to one certain truth, one “single story”, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer, asks in her 2009 Ted Talk to tell or let people tell “many stories” from different perspectives, in order to oppose to incomplete stereotypes. As kulturweit volunteers we seek to contribute to this by letting other people tell their own stories in our countries of deployment: Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Kenya. In doing so, we won’t share our own impressions but let the stories being told by the people living in these countries in order to focus their points of view.

„How stories are told, who tells them, when they’re told, how many stories are told –are really dependent on power.“ – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We are aware of the power of storytelling and that as author of the blog, we can still influence the selection of the topics. Nevertheless we try to keep the selection of the stories as open as possible, so that the people we ask decide themselves what they want to tell and in which form they want the narrated to be published on the blog.