Success Stories & New Ideas
The Bird Exchange
The Bird Exchange project has a flock of great ideas for storymaking!
Decorate a migrating bird and cover it with stories, questions, greetings, wishes and jokes – make a bird like no one has ever seen before, and send it to someone in another school, another part of the UK, or across the world.
During StoryLab the Scottish Storytelling Centre is supporting the Bird Exchange arts exchange between schools in Scotland and schools in African countries. Why not get involved?
Birds often play important roles in stories, often as symbolic characters or messengers. Why not be inspired by the African and western bird stories below?
Send us your birds to be included in an exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre – and we’ll include as many as we can on this page.
Some background
Since 1997 the Bird Exchange has helped hundreds of Scottish and Ugandan school children exchange bird images, has raised funds for Ugandan projects and created links between Scotland and Africa through the arts.
The project is the creation of well-known Scottish storyteller and songwriter Ewan McVicar. The Exchange has sent hundreds of books and pens to Uganda schools, and Scottish and Ugandan children in thirty schools have exchanged hundreds of bird images.
The Bird Exchange has established and supports:
- a newly built orphanage for ex-street kids, created and run by Charles Mukiibi, head teacher of Mengo Mutessa II School, Kampala, and his staff
- an arts initiative focused on a Design Studio, school creative writing projects which publish short run booklets of the children's writing, and a micro-finance scheme for women and teenage orphans to set up their own small businesses, all run by Gailey Turyahebwa, community organiser and formerly head teacher of Holy Trinity Caring School, Kamwochya, Kampala
- payment of school fees for ex-street kids and orphans.
- To get more information on the Bird Exchange contact Ewan McVicar at storylab@scottishstorytellingcentre.com
An African bird story
It used to be that the birds did not know how to fly. Crow woke up one morning, and knew what wings were for, but all the birds laughed at him. Only his best friend, Tortoise, believed him. "Yes, birds can fly using their wings, and animals can fly by running very fast." Next morning the two friends climbed up the mountain, ready to jump off. All the birds and animals came to laugh. Crow went first, and flew. The birds jumped up and down in excitement, and waved their wings, and they flew too. Then Tortoise jumped, but he fell and smashed his shell. You can still see that his shell has been broken then stuck together.
A western bird story
A swallow and other birds watched a farmer sowing seed. The swallow said 'We had better eat up every one of those seeds quickly or we will be sorry.' The other birds laughed at him, and refused. The swallow did his best, but some of them started to grow, so he flew far away to the south. The seeds were hemp, and they grew into strong plants. The farmer harvested them, and made them into cords, and with the cords he made nets, and with the nets he caught the birds who had laughed at the swallow.
More about stories.
"The story outlives the sound of war-drums. The story saves our children from blundering into the cactus fence, for the story is our guide. Without it we are blind. Does the blind man own his guide? No. The story befriends and directs us, explains why things are as they are, accompanies us on our journey, comforts us, shows us the way, points out the dangers and the interesting things we pass, tells us about the interesting people who have passed this way before, introduces us to new interesting people on the way, and tells us when we have reached home."
[Based on words of Chinua Achebe, expanded by Ewan McVicar]