Our Dream City is a campaign designed by StoryCycle that focuses on empowering local youth and communities to take an active part in designing and making their places vibrant by using technology. The campaign focuses on enabling instigators with digital tools, arts, and a platform to engage their own community as well as civic processes.
In 2019, StoryCycle worked with the British Council to do a chapter of Our Dream City at the Bagmati Promenade, which stretches from Thapathali to Teku. This work was undertaken as part of the British Council’s 60 Years in Nepal programme, wherein youth from the area were engaged in mapping exercises using multimedia tools for writing, capturing audio/video to weave narratives exploring the socio-political and historical narratives of the Bagmati area. The programme was initially inspired by research on the area done by British architect John Sanday OBE.
Fifteen youth were selected through an open call—made in collaboration with the local government—and were given the opportunity to participate in a three-day story and mapping workshop. This engagement led to the participants finding and capturing historical and mythological stories of the Teku-Thapathali stretch, which resulted in the addition of 40+ places in Google Maps along with text and images narratives of 30 of the places.
For more information on the project, visit the official Our Dream City website.
