Have you refocused your lens?
What comes to mind when you envision a group of divers exploring the southern tips kelp forests, restoring East Africa’s coral reefs or filming wildlife in warm and wild forest and plains across the continent? What do filmmakers, scientists, innovators and conservation heroes look like, sound like, and dress like?
Africa Refocused is built on a bold theory of change:
When talented and diverse African storytellers receive the training, mentorship, connections, and access they need to advance their skills and careers, they become leaders in wildlife and natural history storytelling. Their voices add vital perspectives to the global conservation narrative, helping to protect Africa’s wildlife for generations to come.
Our Story Arc is a collection of stories that amplify, and powerfully celebrate just a fraction of the trailblazing, compelling, complex, funny, hopeful, nuanced, inspiring, passionate and hard-fought journeys of African storytellers, conservationists and scientists in the NEWF community - on and off continent.
Through these stories, we celebrate our collective agency, and seek to share the value of community-centric impact through warm, thought-provoking narratives that highlight the richly diverse cultures, multidisciplinary talent and Indigenous knowledge systems that play a significant role in the preservation of our wild spaces, species and the communities that coexist with them.
Africa Refocused, Reimagined, and Rising Together at #NEWF2025
The 8th NEWF Fellows Summit and Congress emerged as a culturally vibrant, supportive and engaging source of community, connection and creative energy once again. Curated to respond to the evolving needs of fellows, covering everything from storytelling craft, pitching strategies and collaborative production approaches - to inviting the industry to join the conversation reimagining the future of community-inclusive, African-led storytelling, science and art.
What if you could have a conversation with one of the worlds most renowned ocean storytellers?
In 2021 NEWF hosted the Decade Divemaster Storytellers Lab for 10 Indigenous African women. Training to be SCUBA Divemasters by day and delving into storytelling by night - they had a virtual session unpacking ocean storytelling with Brian Skerry.