Communications and editorial – Devyani Nighoskar

Communications and Storytelling for Change

I see communications as a process of listening, co-creating, and connecting — using storytelling to make research and advocacy more human, inclusive, and grounded in lived realities. I work with organisations to shape stories directly with the people at the heart of them, making sure their voices, experiences, and perspectives guide the narrative.

I offer:

Storytelling consultancy and strategy – translating research and impact into authentic, human stories.
Co-creation and editorial production – guiding participatory story processes and producing reports, blogs, and multimedia pieces.
Communications and narrative strategy – designing thoughtful, advocacy-driven frameworks that connect communities, policymakers, and the public.

Showcase

Project: We Migrant Domestic Workers— A Storytelling Zine for Advocacy

Co-created a storytelling zine with migrant domestic workers in the UK, capturing their lived experiences and advocacy messages on visa and labour rights. The zine — launched on International Domestic Workers Day and shared with Members of Parliament — became both a creative and political platform, amplifying workers’ voices through stories and speeches delivered in Parliament.

Read the zine here

The Samuel Hall Stories Platform

I conceptualised and led the creation of Samuel Hall Stories — the organisation’s flagship storytelling platform that connects research with real human experiences.

Bringing together first-person narratives, expert insights, thematic features, photo stories, podcasts, and documentaries, the platform explores migration, displacement, and social change through a deeply human lens — including the Everyday Women Leader Series.

To date, we’ve curated and edited over 100 stories from more than 20 countries, amplifying the voices of migrants, refugees, returnees, and frontline actors.

Project: Gujjarango Aaino – The Mirror of the Van Gujjars

Co-leading a community-led photo and storytelling project with the Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sanghathan — a collective of forest-dwelling, semi-nomadic pastoralists in the Himalayas. The project, Gujjarango Aaino (“The Mirror of the Van Gujjars”), is a growing auto-ethnographic photo archive and exhibition, enabling Van Gujjar men, women, and children to document their lives and culture through their own lens. Currently expanding from a pilot with children to include the wider community, the project reclaims narrative ownership and builds a living visual archive of identity, belonging, and change.

Leadership in Climate Action – Afghanistan for UNOCHA and University of Shanghai (2024)

Together, with the team at Samuel Hall, I co-authored a narrative advocacy brief with Islamic Relief highlighting Afghan women’s leadership in climate resilience.

The brief centres first-person case studies of women leaders and faith actors to humanise evidence and ground policy messages in lived experience.

We developed action-oriented recommendations that connected grassroots voices to global advocacy agendas on gender, localisation, and climate.

Read here

Project: Time vs. Tradition – Women and Waterwork in Dehne Village

Contributed a photo story to Living Waters Museum’s interactive digital exhibition on Women, Water, and Work — showcased globally as part of the 3rd International Conference of Water Museums (Valencia, 2019). The piece explored cultural traditions surrounding women’s relationship with water in Dehne Village, Maharashtra.

Explore the project here

Project: East Indian Community of Mumbai – Sahapedia

As a Research Coordinator at Sahapedia, I developed a multimedia research module documenting the history, culture, and identity of Mumbai’s East Indian community — one of the city’s original inhabitants. The project combined text, visuals, and community-authored pieces to ensure the research reflected the community’s own voice and agency, contributing to Sahapedia’s digital heritage archive.
Explore the project →

Project: Stories of Change – VNG International (SDLG Programme)

My work on behalf of Samul Hall with VNG International’s Sustainable Development through Improved Local Governance (SDLG) programme, which aimed to assess its impact in Iraq, Kenya, and Uganda. Rather than relying on outcome statements alone, we asked: why not understand impact from the perspective of those on the receiving end? I proposed a Stories of Change process, and we conducted two-day workshops in Kenya and Uganda in person, and remotely in Iraq. The focus was not just on telling impact stories, but on becoming sensitive to small, intended and unintended outcomes — how programmes affect people differently, and how to articulate those changes in narrative form, going beyond project indicators. Through the workshops and resulting 20 stories, we learned not only about capturing change, but also about the importance of articulation, messaging, dissemination, and ethics when capturing and sharing change.

Project: Migrant Workers’ Employment Rights During COVID – Kalayaan & FLEX

Collaborated with Kalayaan and Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) to translate and produce a Hindi-language video on migrant workers’ employment rights in the UK for the Mayor of London’s Employment Rights Campaign. The video was part of a multilingual series supporting migrant workers during COVID-19, now featured on the London Employment Rights Hub.

Editing and Documentation – Caritas India Report

Edited impact stories and research documentation for a Caritas India report, enhancing clarity, coherence, and ethical language use. I ensured consistent terminology, strengthened distinctions between researcher and respondent voices, and refined qualitative descriptions to make findings more precise and measurable. I also edited impact stories from the project and integrated them within the narrative of the report.

FAiR (2023–2026) – European Union

For the EU-funded FAiR project on return migration governance, I drafted the Communications, Dissemination, and Exploitation (CDE) Plan and serve on the editorial board to steer consortium-wide communications. I am also coordinating a photo series and 12-part video campaign featuring fieldwork insights to strengthen advocacy and public engagement on humane migration governance.

UNICEF (2024) – Evaluation of the Maharati Programme, Jordan

As part of my role with Samuel Hall, for UNICEF’s endline evaluation of the Adolescents and Youth Life Skills Programme, I conceptualised and supervised a co-created video produced by participating youth. Using participatory and auto-videography methods, the video highlighted the programme’s tangible impact through the voices of its beneficiaries.
Photo credits: Bilal Jarekji for UNICEF

Aga Khan Foundation (2023) – Foundations for Learning (F4L), East Africa

As a Communications Consultant for AKF on behalf of Samuel Hall, I developed the communication and advocacy strategy for the Foundations for Learning project across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. My work included drafting narrative reports, blogs, and visual products such as posters and behaviour change materials to communicate progress on gender equality and education.

Islamic Relief Worldwide (2024)

In my role at Samuel Hall, I contributed to case studies and communications for a multi-country study on faith actors and localisation across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia, and Tunisia. I also hosted and produced a podcast episode exploring the role of faith-based actors in shaping humanitarian response.

Listen to the podcast here