Impact Beyond the Screen: How One World Media Alumnus Breech Asher Harani Is Leading the Co-Creating Cacao Futures Fellowship in Davao

 In this piece, Breech Asher Harani shares how his film Chocolates Melting Away continues to create change beyond the screen, through the Co-Creating Cacao Futures Fellowship he launched in Davao with the support of the Pulitzer Center’s The Impact Initiative.

Cacao is often spoken of as a commodity measured in yields, prices, and exports. But in Davao City, cacao is also memory, labor, land, and climate. It is livelihood and vulnerability. It is heritage, and increasingly, it is a question about the future.

That question first took shape through the short documentary film Chocolates Melting Away, produced in collaboration with One World Media, the Pulitzer Center, and the Financial Times. The film explores the intersections of climate change, cacao farming, and global consumption tracing how a warming world threatens both livelihoods and cultural landscapes.

Cacao Futures: A Youth Co-Creation Fellowship that took place from January 23-25, 2026, emerged as a direct response to that film, an attempt to move the conversation from the screen into the community, and from awareness into action. The fellowship was organized with the support of the Pulitzer Center’s The Impact Initiative, creating a space where young people could critically engage with the film’s themes. Fellows were then encouraged to respond through their own creative practice, be it through creating a film, poster, campaign concept, or multimedia piece, as a means of transforming critical dialogue into creative intervention.

Fellows in the streets of Davao City.

Rather than positioning fellows as passive learners, the fellowship was designed so learning would go beyond the workshop room; as a co-creation space where knowledge flows in many directions, and where stories are shaped not just by facts, but by lived experience.

On the second day, fellows stepped outside the venue and into the streets of Davao City. They visited local cacao and chocolate spaces, spoke with people working along different points of the value chain, and observed how cacao culture lives quietly and visibly in the city. This experience became a turning point.

One fellow said on a Facebook post, “The experience blended exploration, creativity, and purpose—turning every visit into a learning moment and a step toward stronger cacao advocacy.” The Co-Creative Society emphasizes that these firsthand experiences became the foundation of their creative outputs, transforming lived moments into ideas, narratives, and concepts shaped by the realities of Davao’s cacao and chocolate culture.

These reflections mattered. They reminded us that advocacy becomes more honest when it begins with experiencing and listening.

Fellows brainstorming during the fellowship.

Back at the venue, fellows worked in small teams to translate their experiences and reflections both from the film and from the field into creative outputs. These ranged from short videos and visual narratives to written pieces and conceptual campaigns. Time and resources were limited, but intention was not.

Several fellows posted photos of their group work online describing the process as “intense” and “every exchange felt like a seed planted”. One post simply read: “Challenge accepted!”

For me as a facilitator, these reflections were as meaningful as the outputs themselves. They reflected a shift from seeing creativity as self-expression, to understanding it as a form of stewardship.

Creative poster output by Alecs Mari Ballarta, Paul Martin Acol, Krizzy Daugdaug and Jorenz Nicosia.

Young people were the focus of Cocao Futures because they are so often invited into climate conversations only at the end and asked to amplify messages already decided. This fellowship tried to do the opposite.

The fellowship trusted young creatives to question dominant narratives, to sit with uncertainty, and to imagine futures that are both critical and compassionate. Storytelling became the bridge connecting cacao farmers, consumers, climate realities, and cultural identity.

As one fellow wrote in a post after Fellows presented their creative pieces, “Our first draft was only the beginning. Like cacao itself, meaningful advocacy demands patience, refinement, and the courage to keep shaping the story until it truly serves the people it represents.”

Fellows during the closing ceremony.

Cacao Futures does not end with a closing program or a group photo. Its success lives in the conversations fellows continue to have, the stories they choose to tell next, and the care they bring into their creative practice. In a time when climate narratives are often dominated by urgency and despair, this fellowship offered something else: grounded hope, built slowly through collaboration, reflection, and shared responsibility.

Chocolate may melt and futures are uncertain, but when young people are given the chance to respond creatively, critically, and collectively to stories like Chocolates Melting Away, new possibilities take root. And sometimes, that is where real impact begins.