Giving a blank page to the unheard.
I don’t know if you listen to Coldplay, but I have, and there is a lyric that’s been stuck with me for weeks now: Nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be this hard. I’m sure Chris Martin wasn’t singing about creating a nonprofit from scratch when he crooned those words, but they ring true. When we started …
Nestled in the Bosomtwe District of Ashanti Region, just a few kilometers away from Lake Bosomtwe, the water-filled crater left by a meteor some 10 million years ago and the legendary site of the god Twi, for whom the traditional lingua franca of much of Ghana is named, lies the proud and newly paved village of Asisiriwa. Boasting a quad-shaped …
It was hot the day we arrived in Adaklu Helekpe, a small town in the Volta Region abutting Adaklu Mountain, said to be the tallest free-standing mountain in Ghana. We came first by tro-tro to Ho, then took a shared taxi the rest of the way to Helekpe, after being informed that the town we originally intended to visit had …
What do we mean when we talk about “postcolonialism” or “postcolonial cultures”? It’s a fair question, and one we get asked fairly frequently. It’s also a key aspect to what we’re trying to accomplish with this project, and one that requires a little bit of explanation. Postcolonialism refers to a branch of several disciplines (literature and ethics among them) which focuses on …
The day we did our fundraising photoshoot, we also asked our closest friends and family to be filmed answering three questions for an interview-style video we hoped would showcase our humanity and support system. We wanted our loved ones to be candidly honest in their explanations of what we’re doing, who we are, and their hopes and concerns for the project. …
One of the most common questions we’ve received since unveiling Untold International is about the significance of our logo. I’m pretty proud of it, and I’m not sorry to say that there is quite a bit of meaning behind it. Brady designed it himself, and the image you see is the first image he sketched out–but a lot of thought went into …
We are incredibly blessed to have creative and talented friends who are generous and gracious enough to donate their time and gifts to help us raise money. Jennie and Matt are two such people. They’re kind, funny, extremely intelligent, and hard-working–not to mention very loving (of us and each other!). When I approached Jennie about donating pictures for our campaign, …
One of the difficult things about having a blog is that it offers a fractured and fragmented view of the life or lives it is meant to reflect. Like a stop-motion animation, it creates a sense of movement and growth from singular moments and preserved experiences, distilled into the timelessness of words on a screen. Because of this, what I’m …
I am deeply disappointed by the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson by the St. Louis grand jury last night. I am not altogether surprised, but I am not surprised in the same way that I am no longer surprised to find that another woman has been abused or raped. This systemic violence permeates our society in a way …
So, Brady and I are going to be creating a crowd-funding campaign soon to help us get to Africa, and it has brought up some challenges for both of us. For me, the challenge is specifically in asking other people (especially people we don’t know) for help (especially financial help). Both of us have worked our way through school, and …
Untold International is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. If you pay taxes in the US, your donation is tax-deductible.
