Lee Cohen on Fstoppers

Local Story

For eight years I worked for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where I worked on educational policy, early grade learning, infrastructure, teacher training, learning materials, and youth-centered programming. I enjoyed the work, and was able to live in West Africa and the Middle East, working directly with foreign governments on the most efficient ways to improve the education of their school populations. It was a fascinating job, but after eight years I was ready for a change.

Local Story provides NGOs with storytelling content--photographs of organizations at work; short videos for use on social media; longer in-depth videos for use at galas, donor meetings, etc. However, we also train NGO staff on how to create this content.

We train staff in the field, side-by-side with us, using experiential learning. At the conclusion of a partnership with a NGO, we expect several key staff to be able to continue telling stories about the work the NGO is doing going forward. We call this process sustainable storytelling.

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