Our Work > Personal Stories

All videos in this story category share one objective: make a given issue real and immediate to a broad audience by showing its relevance to the lives of individual people.

Why I Work to Stop Malaria *

Story Background: Doctor Orfori’s own experience with malaria provides a personal relationship with a disease that is completely foreign to most viewers. As a grantee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, her story also offers Foundation staff a more profound connection with the work they support.

It All Started with One Teacher

Story Background: This personal story was part of a multi-prong strategy to roll out the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s teacher/student-focused, education strategy at their 2008 Education Summit. This is one of several storytelling styles we employed to ensure the essence of the Foundation’s message reached the diverse audience, whatever their perspective, background and point of motivation.

Building a Business From Dirt & Worms *

Story Background: Lakshmi’s story illustrates the relationship between opportunity and success. It embodies the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s perspective that education and support, not charity, lead to self-sufficiency and real change. In a very direct way, the story also captures the interconnectedness of multiple supports (environmental, logistical, and social) to create a powerful synergy that makes change long lasting.

Spreading the Safe Sex Message in India **

Story Background: This video was created to help world leaders at the XVII International AIDS Conference understand the work supported by the Avahan Initiative in India. Barraged by statistics every day, personal stories can go a long way to make data come alive for leaders and help them connect the dots between investments and outcomes.

* Indicates footage was shot while Catalytica team was on staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but story was completed as a Catalytica project.

** Indicates project was fully produced by Catalytica team while on staff at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.