Welcome beneath the storytelling tree.
This is not just a library. It’s a circle of tales — each one whispered with care, wrapped in metaphor, and sent into the world like a seed on the wind.
Here, I share short stories that spark joy, stir thought, and sometimes nudge your perspective sideways. They don’t take long to read, but they tend to linger — like drumbeats in the chest or echoes in the dusk.
Wander through the stories below. Some will make you smile. Others might make you pause. All are offered with the hope that they add a little more sunlight to your day.
Take your time, reflect, and pass it on if it speaks to you. Stories are alive as long as they’re shared.
Delegation Under Pressure
As children, my friends and I walked into the bush to gather firewood. No one set a bundle on a bare head. First came the cloth, coiled into a ring on the crown, so the neck could bear the weight. As aid budgets shrink, more of the load is moving onto local partners. The cloth has not always moved with it: the money, the authority, the protection. Drawing on new sector data and a southern-led survey of 342 partner organisations, this piece offers a four-question test for anyone who leads or governs in the sector.
The Bowl That Kept Me at My School Desk
I was born in southern Mali during the Sahel drought of 1968–74. What kept me at my school desk, more days than not, was a bowl of powdered milk and dried fish, shipped in from somewhere else, decided by someone else. Fifty years on, I still carry that bowl into every conversation about how aid should work, and who gets to decide.
The Risk of Staying in Control
A peer once told me, “I support localisation, as long as it helps us deliver faster, cheaper, and with less risk to us.” This reflection starts from that sentence and asks what localisation means when it is measured not only by efficiency but also by whether power, risk, trust, and decision-making can really move.