Panos London

In 1991, Panos London, together with SOS Sahel UK, published At the Desert's Edge - a unique collection of oral histories from men and women living across the Sahel desert.

In the intervening years - as environmentalists and policymakers have sought solutions to what Kofi Annan describes as "one of the most serious threats facing humanity" - the voices and experiences of those living in dryland areas have been largely absent from debates, as has media coverage of the issues.

Our Desert Voices project aims to increase understanding and awareness of the impact of desertification by amplifying the voices of the rural poor living in desert environments. The project revisited two of the areas covered by At the Desert's Edge.

North Kordofan in Sudan:

The south of Oromiya and Somali regions in Ethiopia:

Our work in Sudan benefited from the strong relationship that our main partner, SOS Sahel UK (Sudan), has with communities in North Kordofan; support was also provided by Panos Sudan.

In Ethiopia we worked with Panos Ethiopia and SOS Sahel Ethiopia, which runs an extensive forest management project with local communities.

The process

Each country team comprised two newspaper journalists, one freelance photojournalist, and several community development workers living and working in the areas where the testimonies were collected.

The project kicked off with introductory workshops in Sudan and Ethiopia where the teams were prepared for visiting the communities and versed in techniques for testimony collection, including topic development and interviewing skills.

Specific training was provided for the photographers.

Visit one: With mediation from the community workers, the journalists were introduced to the local communities and their village. This enabled them to better understand the local context, as well as gather testimonies and take photos.

Visit two: After receiving specialist journalism training back in the capital, the journalists returned to the community to develop their ideas for feature stories and associated photography.

They explored the themes raised in their first set of interviews, and additional testimonies were gathered by the community workers.

Visit three: Each team will 'return' the testimonies to the narrators by sharing the feature articles published in the journalists' newspapers, putting up a community photo exhibition, and taking part in discussion around the testimonies and the issues they raise.

The results

Panos London, with the support of its partners, has produced a selection of edited interviews for the Panos London website. These accounts have been chosen to represent as far as possible the range of concerns and experiences found in the testimonies collected in Ethiopia and Sudan.

The print journalists in each country will publish feature articles in their own newspapers. Translated and edited versions of a selection of features are available on the Panos London website:

• Blinded by sand
• Cruelty and hunger in the desert 
• From cattle to crops  
• Praying for the land of plenty to return

All the images used to illustrate the Desert Voices section of the Panos London website were taken by the two photographers working on the project.

An interview being conducted in Sudan

Related links

• Publication | At the desert's edge

Image Gallery