Hidden Story Project - Ghana

Some stories are told often. Others remain tucked away for years—not because they aren't worth telling, but because the right question was never asked, there wasn't someone ready to listen, or language made the conversation difficult.

The Hidden Story Project grew from a curiosity about what might happen if we created better conditions for those conversations.

In October 2026, Ghana will become the first place we explore that question together.

When we began talking with teachers, elders, students, and community members in Ghana, we heard something that felt remarkably universal.

People carry stories that even those closest to them may never have heard.

Sometimes the barrier is language. Sometimes it's confidence, age, circumstance, or simply not knowing where to begin. And sometimes no one has ever asked the question that opens the door.

The Hidden Story Project isn't about deciding which stories should be told. It's about creating opportunities for people to discover the stories they want to share—and giving them the choice of what happens next.

Campfire Tales approaches storytelling from an unusually simple starting point: before we can help someone tell a full story, we have to know how to listen for and craft one.

Through its Story Discovery Workshops, Campfire Tales uses thoughtful questions, conversation, imagery, emotion, and story structure to help people recognize meaningful experiences from their own lives and develop them into stories they choose to share.

During our Ghana pilot, Campfire Tales will lead Story Discovery experiences with students and community members while learning alongside Ghanaian teachers and storytellers.

And that's only one part of the experiment.

 Imagine sitting across from someone whose life is completely different from yours.

You have questions. They have stories.

But you don't speak the same language.

TomorrowLabs — Founding Partner & Technology Lead is developing multilingual technology intended to make those conversations more natural. Ghana will provide its first opportunity to explore that technology in the messy, wonderful reality of actual human conversation—not simply in a laboratory.

Can people understand one another naturally? Does the technology disappear into the conversation rather than interrupt it? What happens when it encounters local expressions, cultural context, emotion, humor, or a story that doesn't translate neatly?

We don't know all the answers.

That's why this is a pilot.

 A conversation may uncover a story that has never been written down. But discovering the story is only the beginning.

For participants who choose to preserve and share their stories, The Hidden Story Project will explore ways to transform them into thoughtfully crafted Story Books. Rather than creating a separate book for every individual, stories may be gathered into anthology-style collections—bringing together the voices of a class, a group of elders, women, families, or others who have shared in the experience.

Where appropriate, the collections will preserve stories in both the storyteller's own language and English, allowing the original voice and language to remain part of the record rather than disappearing through translation.

The storyteller remains at the center of that process. Participation is voluntary, and individuals decide whether their story is preserved and shared.

For the Ghana pilot, these first collections will also help us learn. How should a spoken story become a written one without losing the storyteller's voice? How should translation be handled? What does meaningful review and approval look like? And how can the finished collections be returned to the communities from which the stories came?

Those questions are part of what we're going to Ghana to discover.

 This project didn't begin by choosing Ghana on a map. It grew from a friendship and a relationship built over many years. 

Today Is My Someday Travel founder Betsy Benoit and Robert Tornu, founder of Friends of Adaklu, have worked together for 14 years, beginning long before The Hidden Story Project was imagined. Through that relationship, Betsy came to know the people, schools, communities, and aspirations of the Adaklu region—not as stops on an itinerary, but through the perspective of someone deeply connected to them.

When the idea for The Hidden Story Project began taking shape, Ghana was a natural place to begin. Robert's relationships with educators, elders, families, students, and community leaders created the opportunity to start with conversations rather than a predetermined program. Those conversations are already helping shape what the Ghana pilot will become.

That history matters to us. We aren't arriving in a community we've selected for a project and asking people to participate. We're building something alongside people with whom relationships and trust already exist.

Friends of Adaklu provides the community leadership and local knowledge that make this possible, while Ho Technical University brings another essential Ghanaian perspective through its academic, language, and cultural expertise.

Campfire Tales

Founding Partner & Storytelling Lead
Developing and leading the Story Discovery process that helps people uncover and shape the stories they choose to tell.

TomorrowLabs

Founding Partner & Technology Lead
Developing multilingual hardware and software designed to help conversation move more naturally across language barriers.

Friends of Adaklu

Community Partner
Bringing the trusted relationships, local leadership, and community knowledge that make genuine collaboration possible.

Ho Technical University

Academic, Language & Cultural Partner
Helping ensure that language, translation, technology, and storytelling are understood within their Ghanaian cultural context.

PROOF: Media for Social Justice 

Fiscal Sponsor & Partner

A nonprofit organization with a long history of using storytelling, photography, education, and firsthand testimony to bring overlooked human experiences into view. 

In October, the ideas behind The Hidden Story Project leave the planning table and enter the real world.

Campfire Tales will lead Story Discovery experiences. TomorrowLabs will put its multilingual platform into real conversations. Our Ghanaian partners will help us understand what works, what doesn't, and what we haven't thought of yet.

Stories that participants choose to preserve may eventually become part of bilingual Story Book anthologies, bringing together collections of stories from students, elders, families, women, or other participating groups.

And travelers on this Campfire Tales departure will have an unusual vantage point.

You'll be there while it happens.

Where appropriate, you'll have opportunities to observe, participate, try the technology, share your impressions, and—most importantly—meet the people whose ideas and experiences are helping shape the project.

But you aren't traveling to Ghana to become a research assistant.

You're going to experience Ghana.

The Hidden Story Project simply opens some doors that aren't normally available to travelers.

[Explore the 13-Day Ghana Itinerary →]