From Shyamnagar to Dhaka When Stories Travel, Voices Rise

On a warm afternoon in Dhaka, three young storytellers from the coastal upazila of Shyamnagar stood before a room full of university students at the Community Storytelling Festival. They had not come as visitors. They came as narrators of a reality many in the capital rarely see.

One of them was Shibani Munda, who shared the plights of women from the coastal area, how they struggle for water and with saline water due to climate change. She shared how women there suffer from frequent uterine issues. Another one was Md Arifuzzaman, who shared the crisis with livelihood in saline water.

The students present at the event listened to them in awe. And this journey had started long ago in November 2025.

Journalism, Media and Communication (JMC) department of Daffodil International University (DIU), in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), arranged a workshop with the youth of the coastal area – Shyamnagar, a place where rising salinity, shrinking agricultural land, and distant healthcare shape daily life. The goal was to enable the youth of the community to tell their own stories.  

After their training at the workshop, many youths came forward to highlight coastal stories, using a simple mobile phone. For many participants, this marked their first experience holding a camera or speaking on record. Their timeline began with the workshop, followed by recording, editing with apps like KineMaster, and sharing their voices on social media platforms.

The stories were simple, but urgent. And the impact is incredible. In an auditorium full of university students, 3 of them shared their experience.

“At first, my own people hesitated. They did not want to talk,” Shibani Munda recalled. Convincing communities to open up took time. But once they did, the stories came raw, unfiltered, and deeply personal.

Identifying themselves as climate activists, they interacted with their urban peers with quiet confidence. They spoke not only of problems, but of responsibility.

“We must keep speaking of the reality of the coast if we want our situation to improve,” said another activist, Md Arifuzzaman.

The interaction was a two-way exchange. For the urban youth, it was a moment of reckoning. They emphasized that development, at its core, is not only about data or policy. It is about people, especially those whose voices are the hardest to hear.

“Do you plan to carry forward your storytelling journey in the future?” asked Fahim, a university student. For them, the coast and climate change were no longer abstract headlines. It had faces, names, and voices. And for the storytellers, it was validation.

Arifuzzaman, who learned how to hold a camera, said he will continue to document his surroundings, sharing videos on Facebook and YouTube. Shibani, on the other hand, hopes to keep telling stories not just to document, but to change her community’s situation.

Initiatives like the Community Digital Storytelling Festival (CDSTF), first launched in 2023 and now in its third iteration, exemplify DIU's continued push for independent, grassroots storytelling. Without major sponsorships and relying instead on partnerships and collective effort, the initiative has grown into a platform where marginalised, raw voices find an audience.

“We believe that raw storytelling creates real impact on climate change, and platforms like CDSTF are essential for bringing these authentic voices to the global stage,” said Md Abdul Quayyum, Head of Communications, UNDP Bangladesh.

In an age where a one-minute video can travel across continents, these stories carry the potential to become global narratives. They challenge a persistent imbalance in development discourse where decisions are often made far from the realities.

And sometimes, all it takes to bridge the gap is a phone, a story, and the courage to press record.