Some stories defy capture. They linger in the air, woven between the people who live them and the landscapes that hold their histories. They aren’t just about what you see—they’re about what you feel.
As I continue writing Fields of Resilience, I find myself returning to this challenge. Chapter 3 focuses on Agri Planet Africa, an organization dedicated to sustainability, education, and food security in Uganda. I have seen their work firsthand—students at Kyangwali Refugee Settlement learning that agriculture is a path to self-sufficiency, children at Saviour Junior School planting trees that will one day shade future generations, volunteers standing in the red soil, digging, sweating, and building something that will last.
I have the photos. They tell part of the story.
But they don’t capture everything.
What’s Left Outside the Frame?
A photo can show a thriving cabbage field, but not the months of labor, the struggle against unpredictable weather, or the moment a farmer sees a successful harvest as more than just food—but as security.
A classroom full of eager students learning sustainable agriculture practices is powerful, but what it doesn’t show is the weight of what’s at stake. The knowledge they gain may determine whether their families eat, whether their communities thrive, and whether they can build a future where reliance turns into resilience.
A single image can capture people planting trees, but not the quiet understanding between them—that this is more than just a day’s work. It is an act of restoration, a commitment to something greater than themselves, a belief that the land will give back what is poured into it.
The Challenge of Meaningful Communication
For those of us working in storytelling, leadership, and global development, this is a familiar challenge. How do you convey the complexity of transformation? How do you invite someone into a world they may never experience firsthand?
Writing this chapter forced me to confront those questions in a way I haven’t before. It made me think deeply about how we communicate impact—not just through data, not just through compelling visuals, but through a narrative that allows people to step inside an experience, to understand its weight, its urgency, its humanity.
I don’t just want Fields of Resilience to share stories. I want it to build connections between people who may never meet, between decision-makers and those whose futures depend on the policies they shape, between communities who live thousands of miles apart but face the same fundamental question: how do we create something lasting?
What Stories Have You Struggled to Tell?
Every leader, communicator, and advocate has faced this moment—when the reality of what you’ve witnessed is too vast to distill into a single message, when the stakes feel too high to risk getting it wrong.
So I ask you: what is a story you have struggled to tell? And how did you bridge the gap between what you knew and what others needed to understand?
