Redefining How Stories are been told in Africa – Dorcas Sheffy Bello

It is been made known how Praise Wakulti Illya a Nigerian nurse has been assisting expectant mothers who are expecting to bring their bundle of joy into the world. Praise Wakulti Illya has been deeply focused on the major challenges so many communities, especially those residing in remote areas, through a means of providing adequate support for them during their nursing period.

In a more enlightened approach and from a cheerful voice, Dorcas Sheffy Bello tells, the beautiful story of praise Wakulti. Sheffy has been so committed to keeping the good deeds and the beautiful nursing experience of Praise Wakulti lllya, infusing her narration with so much love and energy, which most times depends on where the story is at.

Going through her storylines, you will find it so amazing and in awe about the extra efforts the extraordinary nurse has put in, it was also recorded how she single headedly deliver 8 babies in a night.

On the Recent episode of the “Unzipped Stories of Africa” A podcast that presents details that Sheffy below shared to her audience.

Without coming to a conclusion about her extraordinary efforts, also other individuals lie to her.  She never gives up on her dreams. Bello captioned. She did go beyond just capturing not just only her story but also Bello has captured beautiful details and stories of extraordinary individuals.

Lllya's story represents a beautiful massage that needs to be passed to individuals in other for the world to look beyond the disconcerts of the typical African lives.

I have come across a countless African Stories but could find myself within them Bello said in an interview.

Become very disturbed and discontent with how our stories are been narrated.

As a young girl, Shaffy Bello couldn’t help how reports of media houses distorted her life and that of millions of individuals, mostly those struggling to make a living for themselves

One beautiful example that can be recalled was the coming existence of insurgents in Nigeria, which continued to capture global news headlines prescribing Nigeria as a no-go-zone.

Absolutely the conflict was ongoing with all measures trying to cope with it, but the reports keep portraying the entire nation as a dangerous place to travel to. She said.

Bello embarked on a career as a journalist, during this period she encountered the wrong notion and pervasive story narration about Africa, this cut in so deep to the extent that some journalists, started eating into this biased narration.

I came to the conclusion to confront this narration issue. She Said.

As a journalist who loves making a podcast, she initially taught of the option of making use of mini-documentaries to cocktail some of these growing issues. But the high cost which compiled her to seek an alternative means.

Through her Podcast, it came to her sense that she could really share African story in a more representative manner which truly portrays the drive of the people, coming up with this podcast method, enables individuals to listen to beautiful stories even while driving on the road.

Her stories were represented in different formats and styles ranging from different episodes which include interviews, storytelling, and audio magazines- styles and presentations.

Her major aim was to give listeners a very narrative perspective of the daily lives of Africa beyond the lens of conflicts and instability.

Bello has currently produced more than 40 podcasts with a team of over eight anchors spread across six countries.

During the start of this journalism journey, our first podcast generated just 100 listeners, but after the first two years, our podcast reach has spread to over 56 countries, with some of our popular episodes receiving over 1000 listeners.

Taking concrete advantage of her background in journalism and her devoted fan base, Bello leverage the use of social media platforms to interact and promote her podcast to a larger audience as possible as she could.

“I Leverage every opportunity, as they are potential audiences everywhere”

They have been challenges during creating this podcast journey, most times anchors her always far and the possibility of maintaining consistent equipment and content quality sometimes become very frustrating, because podcast requires good quality.

Despite all these challenges, she remained passionate about fulfilling her course to expand knowledge by consistently hosting an Annual African Story Telling Program. With the thought of impact the skills of so many storytellers to aid in conveying accurate story narratives.

With over 500 training creatives provided to aid in curtailing the biased narrative of the African story narratives, she plans to increase this number substantially within the next two years.

Shaffy Bello acknowledges that the use of podcast has yet to gain popularity in Africa, with a lot of social media users still comfortable with video streaming platforms. Audio still remains regulated to the radio, but not for long if she can help it.

“Most Africans listen to the radio because of music, Africans are still inclined when it comes to podcasts. It is ok, we are content with her current fan base,” we know deep down in our heart that we are making a huge impact on the lives of those who are listening to us, she said.

Always staying tuned to our podcast, we are very optimistic about the limitless opportunities that come from storytelling that digital Media offer.

“This opportunity must be leveraged by African storytellers, they should learn to find their niche, their voice, and be consistent in what they are doing, she said.

In other for one to transform the narrative, a lot of strategies will be needed to be applied which requires more than one medium.

Bello Shaffy has been consistently been contributing to different news platforms (including bird story agency) She is also the recipient of the 2018 African International Documentary Festival’, ‘Foundation’s Best Documentary on Polio’ award etc,

Shaffy Bello “Storytelling is the hope for change that Africa has to change it narrative of how it been perceive and seen. She concluded.