Projects – Lost Freetown

Our Work

Working at the Intersection of Science, Media, and Community to shape smart policy

We believe that we can have the greatest impact by bringing together people from different disciplines and fostering ‘cross-sectoral’ partnerships and collaboration. We’ll be exploring what environmental resilience means in practice, what the challenges are on the ground, and how we can facilitate positive change. We’ll focus on each of our nine themes through Environmental Reporting and Media Training, Information and Knowledge Exchange, and Engagement and Co-Production.

Environmental Reporting & Media Training

Information & Knowledge Sharing

Engagement & Co-Production

Lost Freetown Film Archive

Environmental Reporting

Environmental reporting through audio / visual media + digital tools

Through collaboration and mentoring we are supporting journalists and filmmakers to produce programs and articles that are scientifically valid and reflect the stories, concerns, and challenges relating to conservation and climate change, development, livelihoods, and food security.

Video mini-documentaries will highlight environmental issues, and capture behind-the-scenes footage of journalists being trained how to write, shoot and edit. These video productions will be shared on our platform and pushed out through social media to engage younger populations.

Interactive radio programs on member stations feature call-ins, discussion and debate to connect stakeholders and elected officials with the population. These productions are aimed at fostering government and private sector accountability for natural resource management and compliance with national laws and international obligations.

Drone journalism will be introduced to capture aerial imagery of the forests, waterways and coastal zone areas, contributing to the evidence base and providing a new, innovative form of reporting that has been shown in other settings to foster accountability.

Media Training

Media mentoring and training through hands on editorial coaching and small focussed
topical seminars: “learning by doing”

Filmmakers and journalists will receive individual mentoring through our micro grants process, as well as training in small groups in all aspects of producing high quality radio and video programs, in a process of ‘learning by doing’, including writing and storyboarding, technical skills training, data visualisation, and the use of new and alternative technologies, including drones.

Scientists, journalists and staff at local environmental and community organizations to work together to produce quality radio and video productions through information sharing, where the specialists identify key themes and the journalists master the production’s know-how.

Micro-grants

SUPPORTING LOCAL JOURNALISTS AND RESEARCHERS

Do you have an idea for a story?
We’d like to hear from you!

Please send submissions to
info@lostfreetown.com

Journalists and filmmakers can apply for micro-reporting grants of $100. A team of peers will review submitted ideas and provide feedback to the applicants. Successful submissions will receive a reporting grant as well as editorial mentoring.

The completed stories will be published locally by the journalists’ media organization as well as on the Lost Freetown Collective platform and social media.

Information & Knowledge Sharing

Creating a ‘Community of Practice’ to promote dialogue and cross-disciplinary collaboration between community groups, decision makers, and experts.

Currently, there is fragmentation and a lack of co-ordination between the various stakeholders engaged in creating and implementing environmental policy and programs. We propose bridging the gap between policy and grassroots engagement by creating a platform to promote linkages between different partners and empowering local communities to make their voices heard.

Using an evidence-based approach, we’ll explore ways to support information and knowledge exchange by tackling the following questions:

– How do we make policy more transparent and relevant to local people?

– How can we visualize and disseminate data and information so that it is accessible, engaging, and relevant?

– What is the best way for people to share data and information? – How do we know who is doing what, and where?

– How can we use all this information to create value, and make a difference?

Engagement & Co-Production

Engaging stakeholders in a design-based approach to co-producing innovative and sustainable solutions.

We believe in the importance of cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration. Only by working with different stakeholders and involving local community early in the development process can we achieve integrated and sustainable solutions.

We’ll be undertaking a series of targeted initiatives exploring our 9 themes from different perspectives: policy, needs assessment, and designing for change. We’ll do this by:

RESEARCH
Engaging with people in their everyday environments to find out what challenges they face, what improvements are needed, and the current barriers to change — through a combination of mapping, visual media, interviews, surveys, and observation.

ENGAGEMENT
Organizing workshops that bring together multiple stakeholders (local community, leaders, NGOs, health professionals, experts and journalists) in order to discuss challenges, identify opportunities and make recommendations that can be developed into a co-ordinated strategy involving several organizations.

DESIGN
Hosting participatory design workshops to allow local community and partners to become active members in the design, development, and prototyping of evidence-based and integrated solutions.

> SEE OUR INITIATIVES

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Tackling Health Inequalities: An Intersectoral Approach
Mapping Environmental Health in Kroo Bay

The KROO BAY settlement will provide a case study to test the hypothesis that an interdisciplinary and community led approach — combining urban mapping, participatory design, journalism, and public health mobilization — can create ownership of the process of urban transformation and increase awareness of the vital role of the environment on health and wellbeing.

> Read more

STAKEHOLDER MAPPING

Our first initiative deals with the policy framework around forestry and natural resource management. We’re creating a series of infographics mapping the different stakeholders and partners engaged in policy, programs, and implementation — and the relationships between them.

We’ll be posting updates soon, please check in again!

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Developing Educational Resources for Schools
KING BRUNO by Paul Glynn

‘King Bruno’ is a children’s book written and illustrated by documentary filmmaker Paul Glynn and first published in 2013. Bruno’s story touches on many of the issues affecting the Western Area National Reserve: deforestation, the bushmeat trade and environmental security. It is now being developed further as an educational tool within Sierra Leone.

> Read more

Lost Freetown Media Archive

During the making of Lost Freetown the film, we spent more than a year conducting interviews and filming on location all over the Freetown Peninsula.

While we weren’t able to include all the material in the final edit, we collected some great footage that was never seen. We’d like to make some of this additional material available for public use now. Over the next few months, we’ll be editing some of this additional footage and making it available on our YouTube channel. Please check in!

If you’d like to request any material for non-commercial use, please get in touch: info@lostfreetown.com