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From weeping stones to faith-based activism: the radical editorial proudly supported by climateXchange's inaugural Climate Culture Story Grant goes live.
Storytelling that joins climate with cultural subjects and values is at the heart of climateXchange’s work with our member newsrooms around the world. Our Climate Culture Story Grant program was launched in February 2025, and was designed to encourage radical thinking around how to bring environmental issues out of isolation and into richer conversation. After a competitive process, ClimateXchange provided funding and editorial support to nine projects around the world, encompassing an array of journalistic styles and cultural subjects. The stories have now been published.
Journalists Winnie Ali and Kevine Omollo of the Lake Region Bulletin visited Kakamega County, where legends swirl around the famous, monolithic ‘Crying Stone.’ Until recently, the stone’s mysterious flowing ‘tears’ were a source of tourism and income for the women of the region. Then, the degradation of the forest habitat around the stone due to human activities has forced both a rethink of the cultural economy—and the seeking of more sustainable ways to live. This story explores the place where these actions intersect.
Materials gathered by this story team were transformed into an online article, social media assets and an upcoming 15 minute film. These represent both highly economical use of journalistic resource and a content package that weaves atmospheric cultural storytelling around a rich thread of climate responsibility.
Journalist Jennifer Ambolley’s investigation looked at the increasing challenges faced by already physically disadvantaged farmers in Ghana for New Narratives. This story considered how, as those working the land for subsistence and income feel the impact of climate change, a ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality was driving aid away from those just as keen to adapt to new methods—but perhaps are viewed as somehow less able.
Arguing that these individuals represent a case study in resilience already, this story examines the many barriers faced by these individuals as they seek to contribute more to the efforts to mitigate climate change—and the inspiring ways they are already doing so.
Filmmaker Sophie Mbugua’s camera takes us inside the community of Syethe village, south of Nairobi. Sophie’s short film, published by Africa Climate Conversations, profiles a group of local women and entrepreneurs, who have reignited an interest in traditional weaving skills to create income to help support their families as climate impacts bite.
Also released as a podcast, this engaging vignette explores both the intersection of the climate crisis and its economic challenges with daily life, and the inventive, rewarding ways communities are recruiting both new technologies and old ways to adapt—shifting social dynamics as they go.
In an epic tale chronicling the distinctly Filipino relationship between faith and civil action, for Climate Tracker Asia writer Biena Magbitang tells the inspiring story of how faith-based climate activism historically took root in the Philippines.
Weaving together themes of environmental justice, faith-based activism, and intergenerational responsibility, Magbitang highlights how Catholic social teaching has historically inspired concrete climate action in one of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries—and asks the question: should it now happen again?
It’s difficult to understate the cultural significance of seeds in communities shaped by millennia of farming wisdom. This story by Jackline Opiyo published by Lake Region Bulletin explores how women's groups in western Kenya are preserving traditional or ‘indigenous’ seeds as both a cultural practice and climate adaptation strategy.
Kenya criminalises distribution of unregistered seeds, creating barriers for traditional sharing amongst communities—a system that has seen some small-scale farmers facing arrest and prosecution for distributing them.
Conversely, however, scientists are discovering that indigenous crops are tolerant to climate stresses and show resistance to herbicides and diseases, as well as increased adaptability, in ways commercially available seeds are not.
This story examines this antagonism from the point of view of communities at the sharp end of the backhoe.
A changing of economic tides in recent decades has changed the way Maldivians live—with a surge in tourism prompting shifts in the ways people work, engage with their families, and questions whether their proud nation is in danger of losing its cultural soul.
This story by Hassan Moosa for Maldives Independent takes a deep dive into how tourism development has fundamentally transformed island life. In the past, fathers returned from fishing each evening and the community had access to neighboring islands for agriculture. Now those islands have been converted to luxury resorts and infrastructure, while fathers disappear to distant tourism islands for months at a time.
Centring on the island of Kudafari as a microcosm of the issues facing the country as a whole, the story is a fascinating look at how a nation already exposed to an acute climate threat risks compromising its future for the sake of development—and the cultural cost this entails.
Mtoto News is an outlet that specialises in amplifying children’s voices—by doing exactly that. In this wide-ranging short film, children of Kenya apply Mtoto’s style of youth-led reporting to give a unique, on the ground perspective on the havoc older generations have been wreaking on their future.
Covering topics as diverse as the dumping of waste into watercourses, the depletion of fish stocks, extreme urban heat, flooding, drought and climate-catalysed crime, it features passionate voices of young climate advocates in a powerful and truly authentic rallying cry for change.
Part treasure hunt, part conservation story and part culinary adventure, this collection of digital stories explores the phenomenon of the mushroom that only grows on one island, in particular conditions, under the shade of one tree. This is the Truffle of Pelawan, a species of fungi exceptionally sensitive to the changes in and degradation of the local environment—both natural, and man-made.
Building on the formula that made KBR’s Planet Plate such an essential watch, the team created a podcast and video exploration of this ephemeral one-time ingredient, exploring its cultural significance, its importance as a source of local pride, and what this emblematic organism tells us about the fragility of nature amidst our changing world.
The intersection of traditional indigenous wisdom and the wellbeing of the climate is one often overlooked by the modern world and its many technological trappings. It is into this spiritual space that Onke Nguka, a Ndalo native, journeyed in a short film that explores how reconnecting with a more meditative relationship with nature can lead to insight that is both informative and inspiring.
In this absorbing short film we journey into a region rarely seen in documentary journalism and meet members of a local indigenous group—who explain their own practices in the context of the climate crisis, and the ways of their ancestors.
Onke’s story will be published soon.
Details of how to apply for the next climateXchange Climate Culture Story Grant will be released soon.
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