Unlikely heroes

What ingredients make for a good story? In this edition, we take a look at the different ways that your character makes the story so much better.

When I heard about a Punk Rock band in Myanmar that was doing good, I knew that was the story we wanted to hear. That was a story that we were going to tell on THE GOOD ROAD. Why?

An UNLIKELY HERO.

Kyaw Kyaw is the front man for the Punk Rock band, Rebel Riot in Yangon. Not exactly kind of milieu where one would expect to find the "good guys". And that makes all the difference.

We knew that we wanted to do an episode in Myanmar, but at the time we were scouting ideas for stories, the Rohingya refugee crisis was in the news, the country was still embroiled in the world's longest running civil war, and all hope for peace felt lost as the reputation of Aung San Suu Kyi was being questioned.

However, every place is a confusing cocktail of good and bad. That's really part of the recipe for THE GOOD ROAD tv show. It's the "messy business of global philanthropy". So, how do you tell a story about a place that most people have never visited, or even care about?

Cue the element of Surprise

As soon as we discovered that Rebel Riot were also heading up the efforts of the nonprofit, Food Not Bombs, and that they were teaching street kids how to read and write on the median of a busy street in downtown Yangon, this story wrote itself. The unlikely heroes became the voice of the story, and Craig Martin and Earl Bridges ?? became the sidekicks who could ask the questions about their work, what it means to the community, and provide a platform for the story to be heard.

When people ask us to describe the show, the episode of Rebel Riot is the story I tell. It has most of the elements that has made our tv show, the most watched program on philanthropy, and is the reason we have been nominated for a national EMMY 3 times.

FULL EPISODE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaDIk7QE0XA

THE GOOD ROAD is a unlikely journey of discovery. We often look for Batman, not Superman to be the hero, and we try to find the good in a messy quagmire of culture, money, religion, and competing interests.

The Wisdom of Ramen is a weekly newsletter that opens up a conversation about storytelling, and is open to anyone that has a story to tell.

Each week we will probe different aspects of the Hero's Journey, and explore how "story" provides an easy recipe to clarify your message, communicate in an interesting way, and invite your readers/viewers into the story.

Grab a drink, and take a seat. I know you have something to contribute.