Change, told through the people living it
Research-led narrative writing, rooted in evidence, emotion and human stories. I collaborate with communications, policy and field practitioners navigating the climate disaster and real-world impact.
Change, told through the people living it
Research-led narrative writing, rooted in evidence, emotion and human stakes. I collaborate with communications, policy and field practitioners navigating the climate disaster and real-world impact.
Change, told through the people living it
Research-led narrative writing, rooted in evidence, emotion and human stakes. I collaborate with communications, policy and field practitioners navigating the climate disaster and real-world impact.
Whose lives, which economies and ecologies does your work touch, and why?
Do you have insightful analysis but need the narrative to reveal its true impact? Or does your team have strong data and wants flexible, independent support to show the full picture? Are you looking for a researcher-writer to tell pressing stories of policy, climate and lived reality?
What I bring
Shaped to the needs of civil society, commercial, or policy teams.
Policy & research content
Narrative-driven action briefs, state-of-play reports and investment priorities making policy felt.
Institutional reporting
Evocative portrayals of policy-to-field realities running through results & accountability reporting, donor briefings and project roadmaps.
Advocacy & public campaigns
Structural insights told in clear, vivid community toolkits, frontline dispatches and leadership point-of-view pieces.
Narrative editing & co-shaping
Collaborative revisions ensuring your technical strengths land with clarity, coherence and impact.
Original, research-led features
Participant-driven, context-informed storytelling that invites the communities, partners and policymakers to feel how they influence what happens next.
What I bring
Shaped to the needs of civil society, commercial, or policy teams.
Policy & research content
Narrative-driven action briefs, state-of-play reports and investment priorities making policy felt.
Institutional reporting
Evocative portrayals of policy-to-field realities running through results & accountability reporting, donor briefings and project roadmaps.
Advocacy & public campaigns
Structural insights told in clear, vivid community toolkits, frontline dispatches and leadership point-of-view pieces.
Narrative editing & co-shaping
Collaborative revisions ensuring your technical strengths land with clarity, coherence and impact.
Original, research-led features
Participant-driven, context-informed storytelling that invites communities, partners and policymakers to feel how they influence what happens next.
Feature
For 34 years, Save Somali Women and Children has brought protection, mediated peace and rebuilt governance in the Horn of Africa. Now a 50% funding cut threatens their work, just when the world needs nomadic pastoralists’ practices to help stabilise climate change’s global repercussions.
Published in collaboration with SSWC.
In Somalia, global issues turn on female agency
For 34 years, Save Somali Women and Children has brought protection, mediated peace and rebuilt governance in the Horn of Africa. Now a 50% funding cut threatens their work, just when the world needs nomadic pastoralists’ practices to help stabilise climate change’s global repercussions.
Published in collaboration with SSWC.
For 34 years, Save Somali Women and Children has brought protection, mediated peace and rebuilt governance in the Horn of Africa. Now a 50% funding cut threatens their work, just when the world needs nomadic pastoralists’ practices to help stabilise climate change’s global repercussions.
Published in collaboration with SSWC.
The narrative challenge & my role
The narrative challenge & my role
SSWC needed to illuminate female agency despite atrocities and call for immediate support. I contextualised a historically violent legacy in Somalia, showing how this converges with global stability, health and climate stakes.
In this millennia-old pastoral culture, the distance between the Horn of Africa and the rest of the world is an illusion. Through local voices, I conceived an on-the-ground to big picture feature. Where the people shaping decisions see themselves in the evolving story, fresh insights emerge on how they act, fund and decide.
SSWC needed to illuminate female agency despite atrocities and call for immediate support. I contextualised a historically violent legacy in Somalia, showing how this converges with global stability, health and climate stakes.
In this millennia-old pastoral culture, the distance between the Horn of Africa and the rest of the world is an illusion. Through local voices, I conceived an on-the-ground to big picture feature. Where the people shaping decisions see themselves in the evolving story, fresh insights emerge on how they act, fund and decide.
Results
Results
SSWC published the 2,500-word piece, increasing visibility across their channels; a women’s network newsletter will carry it further. The work portrays their team supported by international partners, alongside federal officials and clan-based communities holding the line.
SSWC published the 2,500-word piece, increasing visibility across their channels; a women’s network newsletter will carry it further. The work portrays their team supported by international partners, alongside federal officials and clan-based communities holding the line. I strengthened their narrative by balancing organisational accountability boundaries with defensible claims, own research and editorial independence. I looked beyond clan, nomad and humanitarian framings to deeper structures in motion. SSWC welcomed new angles for their community-rooted conversations with donors, partners and policymakers.
SSWC published a 2,500-word portrait, increasing visibility across their channels; a women’s network newsletter will carry it further. The piece portrays their team supported by international partners, alongside federal officials and clan-based communities holding the line. I strengthened their narrative by balancing organisational accountability boundaries with defensible claims, own research and editorial independence. I looked beyond clan, nomad and humanitarian framings to deeper structures in motion. SSWC welcomed new angles for their community-rooted conversations with donors, partners and policymakers.
How I work
Information gathering
Participant-driven, context-informed interviews with frontline staff, federal officials and women’s network leaders; SSWC facilitated local access; research synthesised across 12 disciplines.
Fact-checking
Verified 85 claims through a line-by-line review, triangulated the research and documented the proof.
Narrative writing
My first goal is clarity. Then I try to disappear. Instead, through the lives of local characters, the reader traverses scenes and brisk exposition (analytical/explanatory passages). The ending looks to what may come next.
Photography
Guided the visual arc with thematic and symbolic image suggestions; selected, edited and prepared all photos for web publication.
Operational security
Secure pathways throughout including encrypted communication, protected storage and limited access.
How I work
Information gathering
Participant-driven, context-informed interviews with frontline staff, federal officials and women’s network leaders; SSWC facilitated local access; research synthesised across 12 disciplines.
Fact-checking
Verified 85 claims through a line-by-line review, triangulated the research and documented the proof.
Narrative writing
My first goal is clarity. Then I try to disappear. Instead, through the lives of local characters, the reader traverses scenes and brisk exposition (analytical/explanatory passages). The ending looks to what may come next.
Photography
Guided the visual arc with thematic and symbolic image suggestions; selected, edited and prepared all photos for web publication.
Operational security
Secure pathways throughout including encrypted communication, protected storage and limited access.
It’s good to have you here. I’m James.
Close to halfway through life, I followed the need to write. This called me to places where people encounter systemic pressures and lived reality. I bring experience tracing how funding, legacy, power, social fabric and climate stressors intersect with locally-led change.
Teams looking to express their insights through evocative narratives will find me in Berlin. Earlier, in Barcelona’s wine trade, I lived themes of agriculture, economy and tradition. A shared daily life carried connections with communities from Latin America and the Maghreb. In my youth I unearthed Neolithic to early Christian outlines on archaeological sites across Ireland.
I’m from Wales, Britain, with Welsh-Irish origins. Here, in ancient valleys, coal fuelled, willingly or not, one of history’s most paradoxical systemic changes – the Industrial Revolution. Today a marginalised but vivid people guard a deep sense of belonging and identity. They know the meaning of a just transition.
Languages
I write in British English and American English. I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and am conversant in Catalan and German.
It’s good to have you here. I’m James.
Close to halfway through life, I followed the need to write. This called me to places where people encounter systemic pressures and lived reality. I bring experience of tracing how funding, legacy, power, social fabric and climate stressors intersect with locally-led change.
Teams looking to express their insights through evocative narratives will find me in Berlin. Earlier, in Barcelona’s wine trade, I lived themes of agriculture, economy and tradition. A shared daily life carried connections with communities from Latin America and the Maghreb. In my youth I unearthed Neolithic to early Christian outlines on archaeological sites across Ireland.
I’m from Wales, Britain, with Welsh-Irish origins. Here, in ancient valleys, coal fuelled, willingly or not, one of history’s most paradoxical systemic changes – the Industrial Revolution. Today a marginalised but vivid people guard a deep sense of belonging and identity. They know the meaning of a just transition.
Languages
I write in British English and American English. I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and am conversant in Catalan and German.
It’s good to have you here. I’m James.
Close to halfway through life, I followed the need to write. This called me to places where people encounter systemic pressures and lived reality. I bring experience of tracing how funding, legacy, power, social fabric and climate stressors intersect with locally-led change.
Teams looking to express their insights through evocative narratives will find me in Berlin. Earlier, in Barcelona’s wine trade, I lived themes of agriculture, economy and tradition. A shared daily life carried connections with communities from Latin America and the Maghreb. In my youth I unearthed Neolithic to early Christian outlines on archaeological sites across Ireland.
I’m from Wales, Britain, with Welsh-Irish origins. Here, in ancient valleys, coal fuelled, willingly or not, one of history’s most paradoxical systemic changes – the Industrial Revolution. Today a marginalised but vivid people guard a deep sense of belonging and identity. They know the meaning of a just transition.
Languages
I write in British English and American English. I speak Spanish and Portuguese, and am conversant in Catalan and German.