Multimedia projects
I enjoy weaving together stories with art, technology, and creative visuals. Here’s some multimedia projects I recently reported, storyboarded, and produced alongside my team at CBC Ottawa.
These pieces are digital first. I script and repackage each story to fit TV, Radio, and Podcast platforms and also make versions for YouTube and social media.
Still Positive: Stories of people in Ottawa navigating life with HIV
HIV rates are rising in Canada and Ottawa — but with medical advances, the significance of the diagnosis is very different than in its early days.
In this series, CBC Ottawa shares first-person experiences of those living with HIV over the decades and how they view being positive.
They were told they had just months to live. Decades later, they’re still here.
Should people with HIV need to tell their new partners? Advocates say laws are too harsh
Life in the towers
Stories from Donald Street. In this series, CBC Ottawa shares stories of those who’ve called two east-end highrises home.
For many newcomers, Donald Street is their first Canadian address. But two highrises near St. Laurent Boulevard in Ottawa’s east end are also home to a number of low-income tenants, some with plans to eventually move on, and others who say it’ll always be home.
CBC Ottawa spent several months getting to know those who live inside the buildings, known sometimes as “Little Syria,” “Little Afghanistan” or simply the “Donald towers,” asking what stories they wanted to share.
The result is our series, “Life in the Towers,” featuring those who have passed through Donald’s doors.
Not the Canada they dreamed of
Fire alarms on the fourth floor
Shot in the dark
Two minutes.
That's how long it took for a shooter to fire 14 rounds inside a Gilmour Street Airbnb in January 2020 — and also how long it took for Samuel Douf's life to be irrevocably altered.
Douf, who was 20 at the time, says he was hit in the back while he slept. He survived, alongside two others also shot that day.
But he was told he would never walk again.
Four years ago, a bullet inside an Ottawa Airbnb put Samuel Douf in a wheelchair. He shares his story — and his message for youth — in this video for CBC Ottawa's Creator Network.
A mother’s song
Familiar sounds
Charlotte Whiteduck clears the tea cups and plates after a snack of freshly-baked bannock with her mom Reepa Evic-Carleton, and her four-year-old daughter Aleah.
Then Whiteduck, who goes by her Inuktitut name, Qattuu, carefully picks up an old tape cassette she hasn’t heard since she was six years old.
“Most people learn throat-singing from family members. I didn’t have that. This tape was my teacher,” said Qattuu as she placed it in the player.
How three generations of women carried on the Inuit throat-singing tradition, with a little help from a dusty tape cassette
From behind the counter, TikToker films raw look at homelessness in Ottawa
While most of Ottawa sleeps, Ziggy Haile begins his overnight shift behind the cash register at a convenience store at the corner of Dalhousie and Rideau streets, where some of Ottawa's most vulnerable people congregate.
Haile started working as a clerk at Zesty's in August 2021. After witnessing what he describes as "the good, the bad, the ugly and the permanent ugly," he began documenting his interactions with customers on his TikTok channel @gangsterapu.
Meet the Afghan-Canadian artists who are painting a different picture of women in Kabul
On Aug.15, 2021, Zahira Sarwar’s heart sank as she watched the Taliban raise its flag over the presidential palace in Kabul.
“I felt like I was watching a horror movie,” reflected Sarwar, whose family is originally from Afghanistan’s capital.
Afghan-Canadian artists Zahira Sarwar and Maryam Habib illustrate the spectacular landscapes and culture of Afghanistan. They shared their story with Ash Abraham for CBC Ottawa’s Creator Network
Read more up-to-date stories by Ash Abraham on her CBC Bio page here.