Words. Rhythms. Images

18/12/2025

During the Annual General Meeting of ADRRN (Asian Disaster Risk Reduction Network), we had the chance to sit on a panel alongside incredible organisations from across Asia, each leading community-driven climate action in their own contexts.

Our co-founder Ajay Govind shared insights from our project in Dehradun, where we have been working with low-income communities, especially women, adolescents, and older people, to understand heatwaves not just as a weather event, but as a lived experience. Through community meetings, COPE books, and hands-on DiSSC training, participants are identifying local solutions and transforming them into digital stories that communicate their realities directly to decision-makers.

We were grateful to be part of a conversation that centred community knowledge, inclusion, and the power of locally led initiatives. And we’re excited to continue amplifying the stories that emerge from this work, stories that help shape the support, systems, and action communities deserve.

ADRRN SEEDS India

11/12/2025

More than 500 people from across Asia-Pacific came together in for the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week (RHPW) 2025 earlier this week.

This year, we had the unique opportunity to launch the first-ever Humanitarian Story Circle as the ADRRN's Digital Storytelling Hub, along with the Quality and Accountability Hub led by Community World Service Asia.

WRI came with a bigger team this time to , which was spread across three days of discussions on localisation, climate risk, financing, innovations, and community-led action. A lot of our time went into understanding and exploring how we can work more closely with members and partners across the region to take these efforts forward collectively.

We are excited about carrying back and continuing these connections and conversations that started this year at the RHPW.

22/09/2025

The weekend that went by was a special one for us. We were at the first-ever Coolest Projects showcase in , organised by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, held in as the event partner.

The Coolest Projects Showcase is a global celebration of young people who love to create with technology, whether it’s a fun Scratch game, a smart hardware hack, or an app solving real-world problems. For this debut India edition, it was our privilege to help bring together the more than 250 kids who submitted around 100 projects for this platform. Children came from all over the country, filling the showcase with energy, curiosity, and creativity.

From the word go, it never felt like we were two different teams. We hit a cracker pace together with the RPF team and pulled off a fantastic event.

A heartfelt thank you to the Raspberry Pi Foundation for the trust and opportunity. We are inspired by the energy of the young innovators as well as the dynamic team behind the Coolest Projects. We look forward to building on this collaboration and co-creating more platforms for young minds, innovations, and creative problem-solving.

11/09/2025

We are excited to announce that submissions are now open for the Humanitarian Story Circle, organised by WRI and Community World Service Asia and supported by ADRRN. The HSC is a platform to bring forward powerful voices of resilience, leadership, and community-led action.

This year, nine selected storytellers will have the chance to showcase their work on stage at the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week 2025 in .

If you have a story to tell – in words, images, or audio – we’d love to hear from you.

All the details on how to take part are in the poster below.

You can also head straight to the submission form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNPpA5q0nzIkjXKcqPcKbaI60AGypA8VsEIxiv_l0WlqHzQA/viewform

Deadline for submission: Sept 30th 2025.

07/08/2025

As part of our Community Action through Storytelling project, supported by ADRRN, we organised a community meeting with women from four low-income settlements in . In collaboration with A***N GROUP - NGO , we came together to discuss how extreme heat is affecting their daily lives and explore potential responses.

Led by .Prakash, Director at Greentech Knowledge Solutions- GKSPL, the conversations focused on informing these communities, especially the women, about low-cost, practical strategies for heatwave preparedness.

Over the next few months, we will be taking these conversations further to look at how storytelling can connect people, spark ideas, and open up spaces to share knowledge, experiences, and resources when it comes to mitigating .

Ajay Govind .sasindran Faizi Aleem Khan

05/08/2025

We recently conducted a community visit to four low-income settlements in Dehradun. Faizi Aleem Khan, who runs learning centres in these communities through A***n Group NGO, facilitated conversations with residents living in these areas who are vulnerable to the negative impacts of heatwaves and the growing impact of extreme heat. .prakash, Director at Greentech Knowledge Solutions- GKSPL, led the conversations as the subject matter expert.

This visit was part of our ongoing Community Action through Storytelling project supported by ADRRN. The project aims to strengthen local capacities in heatwave preparedness through inclusive communication, practical solutions, and community-led storytelling. By listening to lived experiences through door-to-door interactions, we aim to co-develop low-cost, locally appropriate responses that can help communities cope with rising temperatures.

04/08/2025

At the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week 2025 in , WRI will launch the 'Humanitarian Story Circle', a live showcase that honours lived experiences from humanitarian and community resilience efforts across Asia-Pacific.

Nine storytellers will share their journeys on stage, while many more voices will be featured in our Story Gallery at the venue. The event is being organised by WRI, which is the Digital Storytelling Hub of ADRRN and Community World Service Asia, which leads the Quality and Accountability Hub.

Here is how you can make a submission:

We are offering a free online training session on 5 August, which will help you:

🎤 Craft authentic, powerful narratives
📱 Use your smartphone to record and edit impactful stories
💡 Build confidence to present your lived experience

You must attend at least one training session to be eligible for selection as a finalist for the Humanitarian Story Circle.

🔗 Register for the training here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/GuuS0L0IQrKRzB2yIUY-7g #/registration

10/07/2025

The journey itself is the story...

Storytellers live as much in the past, as they do in the future, while being firmly rooted in the present.

As we celebrate another year of WRI, we celebrate our journey with a great degree of humility and deep sense of gratitude.

Humility, because we know that the work we create will always be bigger than our growth story, and gratitude, because we know what an incredible responsibility it is to tell someone's story, and we take that role very seriously.

We want to take this opportunity to thank all our partners that have trusted us to capture and amplify their work. And to those organisations where we may have fallen short of expectations, we hope you at least saw that we put our best foot forward.

Because of the kind of work we have been able to do, especially in the last two years, we believe that we will continue to get opportunities to work alongside organisations and individuals who are doing meaningful work.

And none of this would have been possible without our team, and their commitment to the work we do.

01/07/2025

Watch this space!

We are excited to announce "The Humanitarian Story Circle", a creative storytelling event that honours lived experiences of humanitarian response and community resilience across Asia-Pacific, which will culminate at the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week 2025 in .

Organised by ADRRN's Digital Storytelling Hub, led by Words. Rhythms. Images and Quality and Accountability Hub, led by Community World Service Asia, this unique event will feature 9 powerful storytellers in a live session, along with a Story Gallery of selected submissions.

Want to be part of it? Start with the first online training session on storytelling for social change.

Note: The training is open to all. Only those who attend at least one training session will be eligible to be selected as finalists for the main showcase at RHPW.

Register here for the first training session: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zlAFQBvFQOmc7vZ_OeMfbw #/registration

18/03/2025

We were honoured to present at the webinar on "Disability Inclusion in Action: Lessons Learned" organised by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

We got an opportunity to talk about the transformative power of storytelling in mainstreaming disability inclusion. Through our Digital Storytellers for Social Change (DiSSC) project, we have witnessed that inclusive communication isn't just about accessibility—it's about representation, agency, and creating platforms where diverse voices lead the conversation.

We also got a chance to learn from the valuable insights of Dr. Renu Singh of Young Lives India, who showcased their approaches to disability inclusion.

This was such a special opportunity for us as we got to share and learn alongside other organisations committed to mainstreaming disability inclusion, as we are. This would not have been possible without our donor, Humanitarian Innovation Fund I ELRHA whose encouragement and support have got DiSSC to where it is.

16/12/2024

Enabling people, one story at our time!

Writer-Director Ajay Govind, known for his compelling storytelling and social initiatives, recently received the prestigious Helen Keller Award from the

07/12/2024

We will be at the Regional Humanitarian Partnership Week 2024 this coming week in .

We look forward to meeting other innovators working in the humanitarian space, learning from the interesting sessions we will attend and connecting with fellow ADRRN members.

WRI will also have a booth at the marketplace where we will be showcasing our flagship initiative, Digital Storytellers for Social Change, a project dedicated to empowering inclusive narratives and creating employment opportunities through digital storytelling.