Don't eat dead chimps

The value of stories is not overrated. As long as people will thank their lives to stories they will never be. Like in Ebola-struck countries as Liberia.

The best illustration of the importance of a communicative story might be the following, connected to the Ebola-epidemy in Western Africa.

The governments of the three hardest hit countries (Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone) could not succeed in keeping the indegenous people away from the funerals of friends or family members who passed away because of this infection.

These funerals sometimes were visited by hundreds of people without protection from the (semi-)openly displayed bodies. They also tried to keep familiy members from touching and washing the dead bodies, but nobody seemed to listen, and the disease kept spreading in high numbers.

Photo: Sega

The turning point was reached when a complete new strategy was decided upon: the message was repacked into a story, and storytellers were hired to travel through the villages and spread the narratives. They were broadcasted and read by well-known voices on radio as well, and songs were composed by famous local artists in an effort to get the message across.

The tide turned slowly but effectively.

Aghan Odera Adan, a Kenian storyteller travelling schools and festivals was the one who spread this strategy. Like he said: "It is not effective to send a top-down message to the villagers that they have to leave a tradition of hundreds of years instantly. One has to repack the message into something that is owned by the locals and let them decide by themselves."

This could be a valuable lesson to us all, and even to Bill Gates, who has given $50 million to help fight Ebola. He is sending a message into Africa saying 'Don't eat dead chimps. Don't eat monkeys'.

Understood, Bill, don't eat any dead animals you find in the forest. But this might not be a good way to tell indigenous people to change their hunting habits when they have to feed their families. It's a wonderful and smart thing Gates and his wife have done, putting serious money into this outbreak. But they might want to reconsider their communication strategy after hearing Aghan Odera.