The Story
A five-year creative partnership spanning national TV commercials, internet safety curriculum films, and a university launch campaign. Some of the most remote island communities in the Indian Ocean. Some of the most rewarding work of the decade.
Mahé Island, Seychelles. 2003 — 2008.
Five years. Five islands. Every major institution in the archipelago. What began as a single film project on a remote Indian Ocean island grew into one of the longest and most sustained international partnerships Cafe Society ever built — and left a permanent mark on the cultural and educational landscape of an entire nation.
How it began
The Seychelles partnership started in 2003 through a connection with The International School Seychelles on Mahé — the main island and home to the capital, Victoria. Jon Robson travelled to the islands with a brief to work with students on documentary filmmaking. What happened over the following weeks made it clear that this was going to be more than a one-visit project.
The students took to the work immediately. The islands themselves — extraordinarily beautiful, geographically isolated, with a complex cultural identity shaped by African, Asian, French and British influences — provided a visual and human richness that made for compelling filmmaking. And the relationships built in that first visit opened doors across the islands that would take five years to fully walk through.
The team
The Seychelles work was a genuine collaboration. Jon Robson — photography, direction, production. Andrew Palmer, Murray Clark, and Chris Webster — bringing additional skills, perspectives, and creative capacity to a project that grew significantly in ambition over five years.
What was made
The body of work produced across five years in the Seychelles was remarkable in its range and ambition:
Documentary films — students reflecting on their own lives, their island community, and the society around them. Authentic, unscripted, powerful.
National television commercials — professionally produced work aired on Seychelles national television. Not student films. Broadcast-quality productions.
Internet safety film — a short public information film on child internet safety and safe surfing, commissioned by the National Council for Children. It was subsequently embedded in the national curriculum on safe technology — meaning that every child in the Seychelles education system encountered work that came out of the Cafe Society partnership. The reach of that single film is difficult to calculate.
University of Seychelles launch films — two films introducing the concept of the University of Seychelles to the local population, produced to raise awareness and motivate public engagement ahead of the establishment of the very first university in Seychelles history. The University of Seychelles opened in 2009 — and the films that helped make the case for it came from a partnership that began with a group of students and a visiting filmmaker from Hull.
The partners
The breadth of institutions that the Seychelles work touched reflects how deeply embedded the partnership became:
The International School Seychelles — primary and ongoing host. The Seychelles National Council for Children. The Seychelles Safe Technology Group. The Government of the Republic of Seychelles. The Seychelles University Foundation, later the University of Seychelles.
This wasn’t a visiting artist residency. It was a sustained creative partnership with national reach and national impact.
What the partners said
Martin Kennedy, Director of The International School Seychelles:
“Students working under your supervision have benefited so much. Many of them have taken the skills acquired further, to tertiary institutions. This is not just an issue of familiarity and competence with technology — it is also an issue of enabling creative thinking and problem solving. Many of them talk about you and the work that they made with you years after the event.”
Rolph Payet, Special Advisor to the President of the Republic of Seychelles:
“His skill in transforming the image of a yet to exist university into meaningful and convincing messages was a great success and had the desired effect on the people of Seychelles.”
Ruby Pardiwalla, Director of the National Council for Children:
“The films were a huge success and have made their way into the national curriculum on safe technology. Thank you Jon for your valuable contribution.”
Five years in perspective
The Seychelles partnership ran from 2003 to 2008 — the same year Digital Schools was founded. In many ways it represents the high-water mark of the Cafe Society international programme: the longest engagement, the broadest institutional reach, and the most tangible long-term impact on a national education system.
A film in the national curriculum. A university launched. A generation of students who went on to tertiary education carrying skills and creative confidence developed in a Cafe Society workshop.
The scale of that impact — achieved from a creative base in Hull, working with a small team, over five years of sustained commitment — is quietly extraordinary.
The connection to Digital Schools
Everything that made the Seychelles partnership work — the willingness to listen before creating, the respect for the community’s own story, the belief that professional-quality work and genuine creative ambition are things every community deserves — is present in every Digital Schools project today.
The schools of East Yorkshire may be a long way from the Indian Ocean. But the instinct is identical. Every school has a story worth telling. Every community deserves the tools to tell it brilliantly.
Working across multiple island communities in the Seychelles expanded Cafe Society’s international reach and strengthened the educational partnerships that would later influence projects such as Hull to Freetown and the creation of Digital Schools.
Jon Robson — photography, direction, production. Andrew Palmer, Murray Clark, Chris Webster. Seychelles, 2003—2008.
