Better humans build better systems, and better systems build better humans.
Built around this core belief, a growing community in Thiruvananthapuram is attempting to create spaces where people can connect more meaningfully— both with themselves and with the society around them.
Called Our Manav, the collective brings together conversations, community action, observation exercises, and public interactions through initiatives centred on dialogue, care, and civic participation.
For founder Navaneeth Chandran, the thought behind Our Manav came from noticing how much a person slowly becomes a reflection of the people, spaces, conversations, and experiences surrounding them.
“Our surroundings influence us in every way, and we are constantly forming a collective self,” he says. “Even if someone has good values, sustaining them becomes difficult if the environment around them weakens them. That realisation eventually led me to this— if we want to become better people, the people around us also need spaces to grow.”
Navaneeth, who works with the foundation team at iLearn Civil Service Academy, says interacting with students, listening to different life experiences, and reading gradually pushed him toward building a community space.
One of the central initiatives born from that idea is StoryWalk — a community walking experience designed to help people step away from screens and engage with the city.
“The idea of StoryWalk in my mind is similar to a gymnasium,” Navaneeth explains. “When we go to the gym regularly, the body slowly becomes stronger. StoryWalk is like a civic gym — a space where people become better humans.”
Each session moves through multiple stages. Participants first walk independently with a theme, paying attention to their surroundings and personal observations.
In the second stage, called ‘The Exchange’, they are paired with another participant to discuss what they noticed, often helping each other discover details they had missed. Later, participants sit on their own and turn those shared observations into short stories, reflections, reels, or spoken narratives.
Over the past few months, the community has organised discussions around resilience, diversity of thought, public complaints in Kerala, environmental responsibility, identity beyond binaries, the fourth pillar of democracy, and corrections.
“It is not a debate space. People come with different perspectives on the same topic. The idea is not to win arguments, but to understand how differently people experience the world. Through that process, everyone leaves with a little more clarity about their own thoughts,” says Navaneeth.
Since launching in January this year, the collective has conducted nine editions with steadily growing participation.
The sessions have also occasionally invited guest speakers, including veteran journalist M G Radhakrishnan.
All events remain free and openly accessible. The community now hopes to take StoryWalk beyond Thiruvananthapuram, with plans to organise editions in different cities.
Updates about upcoming events are regularly shared through their Instagram page ‘the.storywalk’.
