Chinyere Nwobani - Chi Creative Stories

Who studies for a degree in aeronautical engineering, and then starts a business as a storyteller? Too tall a story, you might say, but that is exactly what Chinyere Nwobani did.

Whilst studying for her degree, Chinyere continued her involvement in her real passion, theatre, by putting on freelance workshops. Theatre has always been Chinyere’s life; the degree in aeronautical engineering provided in her words,: “a broader understanding of the world and how things work, be it science or the arts”, and which she believes is crucial to good story telling.

She uses this experience when working with young people, who find it strange to hear that the storyteller has a aeronautical engineering degree. She uses this to demonstrate that anything is possible, and that learning drama is not solely for becoming an actor, but also develops presentation skills.

Chinyere ventured into storytelling almost by accident following positive feedback and requests from her performances for which she draws on her living family (her mother being her first inspiration), her ancestors and her intuition.

Things soon began falling into place, but she quickly realised that she needed to organise herself. “Even as a freelancer there is a lot to co-ordinate”, says Chinyere. “I would prefer to concentrate on the creative side of the business, but the administrative side, the publicising of the business, taking bookings, sending out invoices and managing cash flow are all important and necessary aspects of being in business. Many people in the area have been clients of Head for Business, so when I was saying what I wanted to do, lots of people said to me 'Go and see Head for Business, they’ll help you structure your idea and give you simple ways of doing things to make progress'. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Chinyere has big plans for the future. One of these is to start a Saturday School providing an afro-centric education, based on an integrated curriculum. The foundation of every lesson will be a story and, through participating, the students will get to learn about themselves.