The Story Behind I HEART AFRICA PROJECT — Part One of a Six-Part Mini Documentary Series
Every project has a beginning, but sometimes the beginning happens long before you realise you are creating something.
For I HEART AFRICA PROJECT, the beginning wasn’t a book, a documentary or even a clearly defined idea. It began with a feeling — a connection to Africa that developed over time, through experiences, encounters and the people I met along the way. Long before I knew what the project would become, Africa had already found a place in my life, and the more I learned about the continent, the more questions I found myself asking.
What is it really like to live and work in Africa? What are the stories behind the people we meet when we travel there? What happens beyond the safari vehicle and the tourist experience? Who are the guides, rangers, conservationists and local people who dedicate their lives to these places? And perhaps the question that stayed with me most: why do so many people fall in love with Africa in a way that never really leaves them?
Those questions eventually became the seeds of I HEART AFRICA PROJECT.
My relationship with Africa began long before I ever imagined I would create a project about it. There were experiences and encounters that stayed with me, and gradually Africa became more than somewhere I wanted to visit. It became somewhere I felt drawn towards, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to understand the people and stories behind the continent I was discovering.
I became particularly interested in the people who had made Africa part of their lives. I wanted to understand what had brought them there, what had kept them there and what they had discovered through their own experiences. I wasn’t interested in simply collecting stories about destinations. I wanted to hear from the people who knew these places intimately and whose lives had become intertwined with Africa in some way.
That distinction became important because I began to realise that the Africa we encounter as travellers is only a tiny part of a much bigger story. Behind every landscape is a history. Behind every wildlife experience are people who understand and protect those environments. Behind every extraordinary destination are communities, guides, rangers, conservationists, photographers, tourism workers and countless others whose lives are connected to the places visitors come to experience.
I wanted to know their stories.
What began as a personal fascination slowly became something much bigger. I started talking to people, researching their experiences and collecting stories from individuals whose lives had taken them into different parts of Africa.
There were guides who had spent years learning the wilderness. There were rangers and conservationists whose work was connected to protecting wildlife. There were photographers and people working in tourism, as well as individuals whose lives had simply taken an unexpected turn and brought them to Africa. Every person had a different reason for being there, and every story revealed another side of the continent.
The more people I spoke to, the more I understood that there could never be one definitive story about Africa. It is far too vast, diverse and complex for that. Instead, I wanted to create a collection of individual experiences — different voices, different journeys and different relationships with the continent.
Those stories eventually came together to become I HEART AFRICA.
The book was never intended to tell readers what Africa was. It was intended to let people who knew and loved Africa tell us what it meant to them.
The project grew over approximately seven years, and what had initially been an idea became years of research, conversations, interviews, writing and bringing together the experiences of people who each had their own connection to Africa.
There were stories from different countries and different walks of life, but something connected them all. Each person had encountered Africa in their own way, and each had something to say about the relationship they had developed with the continent.
As I collected those stories, I began to realise that I wasn’t simply creating a book. I was building a record of people’s experiences and preserving something of the relationships they had formed with Africa.
Every conversation added another piece to the picture, and every story made me want to understand more. I found myself looking beyond the obvious attractions and becoming increasingly interested in the people behind them — the people who knew the landscapes, understood the wildlife and had built lives around the places that travellers came to experience.
After approximately seven years of developing the project, I HEART AFRICA was finally published in 2022.
I had created the book I had spent years imagining.
But publishing it didn’t give me the sense of completion I expected.
Instead, it left me with another question.
What happened to everyone?
The people whose stories filled the pages of I HEART AFRICA didn’t stop living when their chapters ended. Their lives continued. Years passed. Careers changed. Circumstances changed. New experiences happened, and the world around them changed too.
I kept wondering where they were now. What were they doing? What had happened since we spoke? Had their relationship with Africa changed? And what would it be like to sit down with them again, years later, and hear what happened next?
Those questions eventually became the foundation for the next evolution of I HEART AFRICA PROJECT.
Because I don’t simply want to preserve these people’s stories in a book and leave them there. I want to go back.
I want to find them again. I want to sit with them, listen to them and discover where life has taken them. I want to revisit the stories that first inspired the project and understand what has happened since those original conversations.
And I want to meet new people along the way — people whose stories have never been part of the project before.
That is where I HEART AFRICA PROJECT is heading now.
The dream is to return to Africa for an extended journey and reconnect with the people behind the pages of the book, while discovering new people, places and stories along the way. It is no longer simply about looking back at what I created seven years ago. It is about continuing the story and allowing the project to evolve alongside the people and places that inspired it.
The book captured a moment in time.
The journey will discover what came next.
And that is why this six-part mini documentary series begins at the beginning.
Before the book.
Before the documentary.
Before I HEART AFRICA PROJECT had a name.
Before I knew exactly where this journey would lead.
Back to the moment when Africa first became part of my story.
I think that question sits underneath everything I have created.
Why Africa?
Why did this continent capture my imagination so deeply? Why did the stories of these people stay with me? Why, after all these years, do I still feel there is more to discover?
The answer isn’t one particular place or one particular experience. It is the accumulation of people, stories, landscapes, wildlife, conversations and moments that have shaped the way I see Africa.
The more I learned, the less I felt that Africa was somewhere I could simply visit and understand. Instead, it became something I wanted to keep exploring.
And perhaps that is why the project has continued to evolve.
What started with a desire to understand became a book. The book became a collection of people and their stories. Those stories created questions about what happened next. And those questions have now become the beginning of another journey.
Looking back at where I HEART AFRICA PROJECT began, I can see that I didn’t know what the project would eventually become. I only knew that I wanted to listen to people and understand something of their relationship with Africa.
The book was one chapter of that journey.
The six-part mini documentary series is another.
And the journey back to Africa will be the next.
There are still people I want to find. There are stories I want to revisit. There are new voices I want to hear. There are places I haven’t yet experienced and questions I haven’t yet asked.
That is what makes this project so exciting to me.
The story isn’t finished.
In many ways, it is only beginning again.
WATCH PART ONE: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Where It All Began is the first episode of the six-part mini documentary series exploring the story behind I HEART AFRICA PROJECT — where my connection to Africa came from, how an idea developed into a book, and why the publication of that book was never really the end of the journey.
It is a story about how a feeling became an idea, how an idea became seven years of work, and how that work created a project that continues to grow.
Because sometimes we don’t recognise the beginning of a journey until we look back and realise how far it has taken us.
This is where my story with Africa began.
This is where I HEART AFRICA PROJECT began.
And this is only Part One.
I HEART AFRICA PROJECT
A book. A collection of stories. A journey back to the people who made it possible.
Follow the six-part mini documentary series and discover the story behind I HEART AFRICA PROJECT.
For the love of Africa.
I HEART AFRICA PROJECT 