Identity & Theory of Change

An EAVA Artists Programme. Root Signal is an independent public-interest monitoring and data infrastructure initiative. We are not a general civic-reporting platform — we are built around one central idea: measuring Africa's human-rights narrative environment and connecting those narratives to verified events.

What we do. Media, political, religious, and public actors constantly frame human rights and inclusion — as threats, as imports, as moral questions, as matters of law. Those frames shape public opinion, policy, and, ultimately, safety. Root Signal continuously monitors local and social media across East Africa, in English, Swahili, and Luganda, and records how those frames shift over time.

Two connected spines. Narrative monitoring is the primary product: a continuous, structured record of how rights and inclusion are discussed in public life. Verified incident documentation is the second spine — individual, reviewed events that can be linked back to the narrative activity around them, so researchers and rights groups can see not just that something happened, but the public conversation that surrounded it.

Theory of change. Visibility precedes accountability. A rights group, journalist, or funder who can see how a narrative is building — which actors are driving it, which frames are gaining ground, where it connects to real incidents — is better equipped to respond early, correct misinformation, and make the case for protection with evidence rather than anecdote. Root Signal's role is to make that visibility possible: consistent, multilingual, reviewed, and open to scrutiny.

This page describes our direction and current scope honestly. Some of what's described here — a full framing codebook, public actor registry, and narrative-to-incident connection layer — is in active development. Where a feature isn't live yet, our public pages say so rather than imply otherwise.