DigiKōr - Enabling Young People to Capture Community Stories

Campfire Studios is a Pasifika-owned business that is dedicated to amplifying the voices of Māori and Pasifika communities and strengthening intergenerational collaboration to build more connected communities through safe talanoa.

Campfire Studios strongly advocates for more Māori and Pasifika business owners and community groups to produce and share their stories in powerful and exciting new ways through digital content creation. Specialising in crafting authentic and engaging digital content for businesses and well-known personalities, the Campfire Studios team has been supported by the J R McKenzie Trust to branch out to support young people to have their voices heard.

Through DigiKōr, the team provides digital training to empower young people with the skills to create and publish their own professional podcasts and videos to facilitate meaningful digital connections and deeper conversations with whānau. It provides essential skills in digital content creation, strengthening relationships with Aiga while developing listening and conversational skills. Young people who complete this six-week course can record, edit, and publish a Digital Kōrero.

The founder of Campfire Studios, Will Fleming, says the inspiration for DigiKōr came from his own background and experiences.

“Being both a Cook Islander and Pākehā, my upbringing allowed me to move between two worlds and float between cultures. I also had parents who allowed me to express myself and they always gave me opportunities to voice my opinion. Additionally, as someone who had undiagnosed dyslexia at school, I realised early on that the skill I had to develop, and ultimately master, was to learn how to talk to people. So, I’ve always had a deep kinship with communicating with other people via the face-to-face spoken word and I think that’s the bedrock of this project.”

Campfire Studios has ongoing relationships with Accelerating Aotearoa and the Pasifika Digital Knowledge Bank that focus on podcasting in the community. Part of this mahi led to the establishment of a studio in Ōtara to enable the telling of positive community stories to help combat the negative stories that can sometimes come out of South Auckland. While this had primarily been an initiative for adults, it led Will down the pathway towards offering young people an opportunity to research an elder in their community, invite that elder to come into their space, and for the young person to conduct a professional interview. A selection of the DigiKōr podcasts can be found here.

“One of my favourite things about DigiKōr is that these young people are playing a crucial part in saving these stories for future generations, capturing the knowledge of their wise community elders for all time,” says Will.

Campfire Studios envisages DigiKōr as a three-year initiative, building towards collaboration between relevant government ministries to offer DigiKōr as an oral-based talanoa podcasting NCEA unit standard for Māori and Pasifika High School students.

“Young people get to practise their oral communication, develop their digital literacy, connect with other generations, see their ideas come to life, and ultimately build pride in themselves and their mahi. Real connection happens when people come together for a deep and meaningful conversation, and the skills the young people are learning are transferable to all parts of their lives,” says Will.

Through DigiKōr, Campfire Studios is helping young people to create stronger bonds with their whānau, while unlocking confidence and communication abilities that had not existed previously. The shared oral history sessions have been transformative, and in this safe talanoa space, the young people have been able to speak to their elders freely. The elders who participated reported feeling heard while sharing stories with their kin that would otherwise remain untold. DigiKōr is successfully promoting and highlighting Māori and Pasifika traditions and unique skills as orators, while utilising digital media to equip students with tools to amplify their voices.