“A Better Life Than Me”: Stories of Labor Migration in Southern
Africa
http://youtube.com/iompretoria
Johannesburg, South Africa
In 2007, the Center’s Silence Speaks program worked with the International
Organization for Migration and the Market Photo Workshop to assist a
group of eight men and women from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in
taking photographs and sharing stories that recount hardships and celebrate
achievements related to every day struggles for safety and dignity.
The stories are being used in trainings and advocacy settings to promote
an understanding of the obstacles and risks faced by labor migrants
and anyone forced to move in order simply to survive.
A Call
To Service: Stories of Alberta Forest Protection
Alberta, Canada
In the spring of 2009, the Center facilitated a workshop with First
Nations and MÈtis forestry employees in Alberta, Canada. The workshop
was hosted in the town of High Level by Albertaís Sustainable Resource
Development to provide participants with an opportunity to openly
recount the personal journeys that led them to careers in forestry.
The stories are being shared as communications tools to highlight
the dedication of government forestry employees to the stewardship
of the land.
Day Laborers
Project
San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
The Center teamed up in 2007 with the Program on Health Equity and
Sustainability at the San Francisco Department of Public Health and
with La Raza Centro Legal to document the stories of local day laborers
and domestic workers. Time and language constraints led to the decision
to adapt digital storytelling methods into a process involving video
interviews and specially designed editing process that emphasized
collaborative decision making with the interview subjects. The stories
are being shared throughout San Francisco, to promote equity and human
rights for day laborers, domestic workers, and their families.
Envisioning
New Meanings of Disability and Difference
Toronto, Canada
In 2008, the Center held a series of three digital storytelling workshops
in Ontario, Canada, creating a diverse collection of stories about
disability and difference. The project explored ideas of diversity,
embodiment, and self-representation, using the power of photography
and digital stories. Women with disabilities and physical differences
present themselves in alternative, empowering ways, in their own words
and images, and the stories are being shared online and in community
settings, to support disability rights.
Equality
Ohio: Stories of Lesbian Relationships and Families
Columbus, OH, U.S.A.
In 2007, as a followup to work with LBGT-identified foster youth and
with transgender students at San Francisco City College, the Center
partnered with Ohio’s statewide Lesbian-Gay rights organization
to sponsor a workshop focused on lesbian relationships and families.
The stories are being used to do outreach in support of gay rights,
marriage equality, and family issues across the state.
Latinas
y Que Program
San Leandro, CA, U.S.A.
The Center collaborated in 2007 with the Alameda County Girls’
Inc. Latinas y Que program to develop and implement an after-school
curriculum for digital storytelling with young Latina leaders. Ten
young women in Latinas y Que completed stories about health and sexuality,
family issues, immigration, education, and human rights, which have
been screened locally in conjunction with Latin American Heritage
Month; in Sacramento during a Reproductive Freedom Day event at the
California State Capitol. Copies of the story compilation have also
been given to the Latino Issues Forum and California Latinas for Reproductive
Justice.
Progressive
Communicators Network
http://pcn-nw.blip.tv/#1423118
Portland, OR, U.S.A.
In 2008, the Center worked with the Progressive Communicators Network
of the Northwest and Portland Community Media to lead a workshop for
organizers and advocates from grassroots social and economic justice
initiatives in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Participants had the chance
to reflect on how their life experiences prompted their involvement
in community organizing and talk about how participatory media can support
their work both programmatically and as a communications tool.
Silence
Speaks
http://silencespeaks.org
Since 2000, the Center’s Silence Speaks initiative has collaborated
with grassroots groups and nongovernmental organizations throughout
the U.S. and in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and Uganda,
to assist women and men in sharing stories that too often are left untold.
Silence Speaks has specialized in developing innovative applications
for working with trauma survivors and adapting the best of the Center’s
methods for use in challenging language, literacy, and technology resource
environments. Stories produced are shared in local, online, and international
training, community mobilization, and policy advocacy settings, to promote
human rights and justice.
Somali Bantu
Refugees Speak
http://afsc.org/somalibantu
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
In 2008, the Center worked with the American Friends Service Committee’s
Project Voice to assist young Somali Bantu community members from Baltimore,
MD in creating digital stories that document the history of the Somali
Bantu in Somalia. Produced in English and Maay Maay, the stories describe
the challenges of forced migration, refugee camp life, and eventual
resettlement in the U.S. They are being screened across the country
in other Somali Bantu immigrant communities and for the greater public,
to build awareness about the conflict in Somalia from the Bantu perspective,
and to advocate for refugee and immigrant rights.
The Story
Project of Central Neighborhood House
http://thestoryproject.ca
Toronto, Canada
From 2004-2008, the Center’s colleagues in Toronto ran this
innovative multicultural/multilingual women’s media leadership
program. Immigrant women listened to each other’s stories across
differences of language, culture, and experience; helped each other
create digital stories; and participated in advanced facilitation
training to guide their peers through the story making process and
explore the powerful role of media and representational technologies
in their daily lives and socio-political realities. The project invited
women to reclaim these technologies through hands-on story production,
and their stories have become a powerful catalyst for local community
organizing and development efforts.
