Millfield teacher and student create coronavirus Listening Archive

A Millfield School teacher and student have joined together to create a ‘Listening Archive’ that encapsulates stories from people on lockdown during the coronavirus outbreak all over the world, allowing future audiences to hear history first hand.

Teacher in Charge of Media Studies Aimee Coelho and Upper Sixth student Charlie Kilner have launched the platform, which allows people to record their ‘coronavirus story’, which will be hosted on their website in a virtual time capsule. Recordings have come from all around the world, including Chile, America and Palau, which is one of the few places in the world not to have a confirmed case of Covid-19.

The concept has been named as a ‘top invention’ created during the time of the coronavirus by lovemoney.com, and the pair are hoping to work with the British Library on expanding the project.

Charlie and Aimee thought of the idea during a lesson at Millfield School, just before the UK temporarily closed all schools during the global pandemic. Charlie, a Computer-science, Business and Media student, then coded a website that allows for people to record an audio file directly onto it by pressing a simple button. The audio is then collected into a secure cloud storage system, where he and Aimee listen to the submitted stories each week and create a podcast from them.

Eighteen-year-old Charlie from Somerset said: “I am one of the 2020 Sixth-Form leavers who has been left pretty sad and a little devastated after school ended so abruptly for us. When my media teacher suggested this project for me, I was really interested in helping out, not only to use my coding experience to benefit others, but also to hear the stories of those who are probably feeling those same emotions.”

Teacher in Charge of Media Studies Aimee said: “I’ve been wanting to develop a platform like this for a while after hearing an interview with dementia sufferers and how they wanted to tell their story. It seemed really apt to start work on it during the current times, but I very much hope it will become a useful platform to connect all kinds of communities.”

To submit your story, please visit www.listeningarchive.com, or for more information contact Aimee or Charlie at listeningarchive@gmail.com or visit @listeningarchive on Instagram or @listenarchive on Twitter.