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Contents:
The Listening Post
May
16 - International Day for Sharing Life Stories
Healthcare
Perspectives on Digital Storytelling Retreat
Bowen Island, BC
CDS
Welcomes Two New CTCVista Volunteers
Stories
for Change
Community
Programs
Education
Programs
Storymapping
Institute
for the Future
Field
Office Reports
Calendar
of Upcoming Workshops
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The
Listening Post
by
Joe Lambert, March 2008
There is one really big story in this country as this newsletter
comes out. The Presidential Race.
“In our Lifetime” was the headline of Ebony magazine
when I wandered through the airport recently. And for some of us,
that sums up the feeling. We never thought we would live to see
a woman or an African American hold the position of President of
the United States.
The race has captured global attention, a hyper-reality TV narrative
where the sturm and drama of each primary, of each debate, connects
us to the aspirations of women and people of color, of youth and
the disenfranchised, in a spellbinding way.
Many of you have heard my stories of my mother’s activism
in electoral politics, and our family friendship with former Texas
Governor Ann Richards. I grew up around these tough Texas dames
who believed that creating a space for women as elected officials,
and as campaign strategists, was a critical part of social change.
Somewhere up in suffragette heaven there is a party going on around
Hillary’s emergence as a national leader.
And when you step back and look at the role of race in our political
history, you cannot possibly miss the implications of Obama’s
desire to represent the Democratic Party. For forty years, this
was the Party of Slavery. For one hundred and fifty years it was
the dominant Party of the South. Much has changed. There are probably
some good ole boys spinning in their graves about right now.
It has already been the most interesting political season in my
lifetime, and the real fireworks have yet to commence. This will
be a great story to tell the grandkids, what was it like, the year
of the ’08 election.
Some Other Tidbits
Emily Paulos, our managing director, and Rob, our Canadian organizer,
are expecting a baby in April. If you are looking for Em in the
next few months, go through Rob! We are also happy to announce Theresa
Perez arrival as the new Executive Assistant, she will be helping
us cope with Emily's absence in the coming months.
We hear from folks around the world about new efforts
linking storytelling to action all the time. Our DeltaGarden
is growing in Sweden. Some German colleagues sent us Reflect
and Act, our Danish friends sent us digitalstorytellers.dk.
The Murmur guys went to Sao
Paulo to connect with our friends at the Museum
of the Person, and on and on, the stories lead to stories, lead
to stories.
In the meantime, we look forward to hearing some of yours.
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May
16 - International Day for Sharing Life Stories
Planning continues on the International Day (see ausculti.org) around
the world. Over 250 individuals and organizations have endorsed
the campaign so far, and many are reporting plans for the day, from
live performances, screenings, special workshops, and gatherings,
to online presentations.
The organizing committee is working out the details to support a
special online event for the day, to be hosted at the website. At
the noon hour in each time zone, we are calling on the public and
endorsing organizations to post a “One Minute Story of A Life”
video on the ausculti.org website. We are encouraging everyone to
begin work on their ideas now, and encourage all of their colleagues
to join in. Details to follow at Ausculti.org.
Each of the CDS offices will be holding public events, in Pasadena,
Denver, Washington D.C., and Berkeley. Visit ausculti.org/events
for the latest information.
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Healthcare
Perspectives on Digital Storytelling Retreat, May 20-22, 2008
Digital Storytelling is emerging throughout the
world as a powerful tool for effectively capturing and sharing stories
within the health sector. Many successful and innovative programs
for implementing storytelling are underway, but not all are widely
known or shared. Join us at a retreat to provide an opportunity
for digital storytelling practises to be shared with and amongst
health care practitioners, researchers, patients and policy makers.
CDS Director Joe Lambert, Canadian Associate Michelle Spencer, and
Patient Voices' Pip Hardy from the UK will lead the dialogue. The
goals of this retreat are to highlight initiatives throughout the
world using digital stories in their work, bring together policy
makers and health providers to build a community of health practitioners
interested in partnering and supporting the work of digital storytelling.
Provide a very practical and logistical understanding of digital
storytelling to those interested in program implementation.
The retreat will be held at Bowen Lodge by the
Sea on Bowen Island. Located just a twenty minute ferry ride from
West Vancouver’s Horseshoe Bay, Bowen Island offers quiet
surroundings for boating, fishing, walking, kayaking and beach combing.
Downtown Bowen Island is home to over 400 local artists and many
galleries. www.bowenlodgebythesea.com
Cost: $595/per person includes registration, accommodation and meals
For more information: please contact Michelle Spencer michelle@storycenter.org.
To register: workshop@storycenter.org
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CDS
Welcomes Two New CTC VISTA Volunteers
CDS Welcomes Laura Haddon and Carrie Cook at our 2008 CTCVista placements.
The CTC VISTA Project places and
supports Americorps*VISTA members within non-profit organizations
across the country that utilize information and communications technologies
to address the needs of low-income and at-risk communities. CTC
VISTA members work to build the capacity of the individual organizations
where they serve and collaborate with other VISTAs on the development
of resources, trainings, and related projects.
Laura’s primary responsibilities will be serving as content
editor for the Stories for Change
website. In addition she is helping to develop curriculum for
the International Day, and working on materials for Silence Speaks
and other community-based projects. Carrie will be focused on capacity
building for our education work, technical and organizational capacity
building for CDS, the development of our Storymapping work, and
assisting with the International Day for Sharing Life Stories event.
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Stories
for Change
With more than 200 stories (and more being uploaded every week)
and forum discussions on everything from microphone recommendations
to tips for recruiting youth for workshops, Stories
for Change has become a dynamic community of digital storytellers
from around the world! If you haven’t visited in awhile, please
take a moment to stop by, check out some of our latest additions,
share some tips and/or questions on the forum, or even upload a
new story.
Laura Haddon has organized Stories for Change’s International
Women's Day celebration, featuring digital stories by women
from around the world. Stories this month include the voices of
a Ugandan woman, Kyomuhangi
Marym, who has lived with obstetric fistula for more than twenty
years, and Nicky,
a young lesbian who survived abuse within her own family (and later
the foster system) because of her sexual orientation. These and
more than
thirty other featured stories span continents and various life
experiences to explore the struggles and joys of being a woman in
our world.
These stories are currently featured on the website's main
page and will continue to be featured throughout March, but
will remain on the site permanently in their
own section. We also encourage members to consider uploading
their own stories on this theme and including the “women’s
day” tag so they can be added to our growing collection.
This celebration is a part of a new initiative at Stories
for Change of sharing stories on particular themes, to coincide
with various international days and celebrations. The goal of this
initiative is to highlight both the diversity of voices on the site
and the common social justice threads going on in the world of digital
storytelling today. Through the initiative, we will be working to
connect with other organization's doing work on specific social
justice issues and encourage them to become involved in the Stories
for Change community. For more information, please email: laura@storycenter.org.
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Community
Programs Report
“… I know what it feels like to have served your country
and come home with wounds that last beyond the battlefield.”
- Robert Scott, volunteer with Sword to Plowshares and participant
in City College of San Francisco workshop, Jan. 2008.
We began the year with a workshop for current and graduated students
in community health outreach programs at City College of San Francisco
and Berkeley City College. Robert’s story and those of the
other participants, which were produced as part of the Trans-Bay
Training and Education Collaborative (www.ccsf.edu/Resources/TTEC),
will be used to highlight the diverse backgrounds and experiences
of these inspiring students and do outreach to increase enrollment.
As a result of connections made through this effort, CDS has initiated
a discussion with Swords to Plowshares about the development of
a digital storytelling program for Vietnam Veterans, with newly-trained
Robert as a key leader.
Back in November, we continued to evolve our public health work
and train-the-trainers approach by conducting digital storytelling
facilitator training for the Harlem Health Promotion Center (www.healthyharlem.org).
Staff at Harlem Health, a project of Columbia University’s
School of Public Health, will integrate digital storytelling into
their numerous community programs for HIV care and prevention, adolescent
fitness and nutrition, and outreach and capacity building to improve
the health of Harlem residents. We’ll continue to develop
this community train the-trainers model this spring, as we carry
out an extended training for a university-community school reform
partnership in Watsonville, California.
And finally, our work with current and former foster youth continued
in two sessions held so far in 2008, one with the Y.O.U.T.H. Training
Project (www.youthtrainingproject.org)
and one with the Guardian Scholars Program at Cal State Fullerton.
We’re so proud to watch as social service and youth support
agencies nationwide continue to adopt digital storytelling as a
key method for supporting current and former foster youth in confronting
their pasts, sharing their success stories, and mobilizing community
action for systemic change to improve the lives of youth in care.
Watch stories online!
Narratives of migration in Sub-Saharan Africa, from our session
with from our session with the International Organization for Migration
can be viewed here: www.youtube.com/iompretoria
Work by young cancer survivors from our session with HopeLab can
be viewed here:
www.hopelab.org/innovative-solutions/digital-storytelling
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Education
Programs Report
CDS continued to push the boundaries of our “traditional”
digital storytelling methods, in a project with the Department of
Public Health’s Program on Equity, Health, and Sustainability
and La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco. We facilitated a collaborative
process in which six interviews were produced to tell the story
of immigrant contributions to San Francisco. The resulting DVD has
already been shown in a number of venues, to examine how the health
and safety of immigrants impacts the health and safety of all San
Franciscans.
Our first-time Youth Train the Trainer project is now in full swing.
We are collaborating with Art in Action, an Oakland-based community
arts collective, to train youth as digital storytelling facilitators.
Four youth have already met for one weekend. They will soon co-facilitate
workshops in the internship portion of their training program. At
the end of April, they will come together for a second weekend of
training activities to debrief their internship experience and learn
additional skills.
CDS has been running a number of workshops for educators. We’ve
taught five since last October, and have an additional five workshops
on our calendar through the summer.
Finally, it was lovely to hear from Ixayan Baez from Girl’s
Inc. of Alameda County. Ten high-school age Latina women from her
Latinas Y Que program produced digital stories. They were initially
shown at a community screening but since then they’ve been
distributed to a variety of audiences include students and staff
at Cal State East Bay, the Latinos Issues Forum, California Latinas
for Reproductive Justice, and the Isabel Allende Foundation. In
addition, a selection of stories will be screened at the Capitol
in Sacramento during Reproductive Freedom Day in March.
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Storymapping
CDS returned successfully to Houston in January
where we worked with Carroll Blue and created stories about community
using the archive of the Eye on Third Ward student project, and
the online archive of Pittsburgh's Charles
"Teenie" Harris.
In April, we will have a week long residency to
capture the stories of residents of the McKenzie Court housing project
in Tuscaloosa. Sponsored by the Tuscaloosa Housing Authority, the
project will map the historic area of the community with stories
of past and future residents.
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Institute
for the Future Workshops
We have joined again with the Institute for the
Future in a series of three workshops, Stories From My Future, to
use ComicLife and iMovie to tell scenario stories about the lives
of young people. The workshops will be held in Berkeley, Columbus,
OH, and Marin County from late March to May.
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Field
Office Reports
Canada
A recent workshop in Red Deer, Alberta, brought together ranchers,
government conservation officers, and senior administrators from
the province's Sustainable Resource Development, as well as staff
from Cows and Fish www.cowsandfish.org.
As the workshop concluded, several participants called co-workers
and buzzed about the experience. One participant said, "I am
really excited. You've shown me a way to go out and talk to people
again. For the last ten years we've been trotting out the same tired
messages, telling them the same old way. No one was listening anymore."
There was, however, a blemish on this workshop. One rancher left
after the first day, in the early dawn while we all slept. That
morning as we gathered, we suspected the ever-pressing demands of
ranch work and an approaching winter storm probably drove him to
wake up (or to be unable to sleep at all) and drive the three hours
home. But we were perplexed. Then this email came a week later...
“Hello there, I'm pirating the distribution list that
I have rec'd through some of the post-storytelling emails, so I
hope it reaches all the right people...Well, I certainly didn't
want to wait so long to send a note to you attempting to explain
my sudden disappearance last week …I simply had to make some
choices. Ironically (I think), it was pondering my story that lead
me to the point of making the decision to 'get outta Dodge.’
In Red Deer, I was evermore impressed by the power of storytelling
… we all revealed a little glimpse of what we are passionate
about; our kids, families, ecology, human behavior etc. I have a
renewed appreciation for managing the impact of a message - perhaps
I'll get another chance.”
-Perry Phillips, Team Leader, East Central Region
Since mid- January we have completed three workshops
in Alberta: a group of nurses in Canmore Alberta with Calgary Health
Region; a group of ranchers, regional conversation officers and
government staffers in Red Deer, Alberta for the Cows and Fish organization;
as well as foster parents in Fort McMurray for Community and Family
Services.
In Toronto Robert Kershaw, Jennifer LaFontaine and Camille Turner
completed a three-day workshop for the National Youth in Care Network
with 12 of their network foster child alumni. A follow-up Train
the Trainer is being proposed for early in August either in Winnipeg
or Calgary. While in Toronto Robert along with Kate Magruder from
the Ukiah Players Theater ran a one-and-a-half day pilot-workshop
at the The Culture Congress conference http://www.theatrecentre.org.
We are now in discussion to run a workshop in May with Harbourfront
Centre www.harbourfrontcentre.com.
Pip Hardy (Patient Voices) and CDS Teaching Associate Surya Govender
recently facilitated a workshop for Saskatoon Public Health with
First Nations chronic disease patients. Michelle is in discussion
with Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge for more healthcare-related
workshops.
Our partnership with the University of Calgary ‘s Faculty
of Social Work continues with a fourth workshop with Native Student
Alumni. Finally, we are hoping to open a field office in Toronto
staffed by Jennifer Lafontaine as early as May, 2008
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Denver
Out in the Denver office we have moved our workshop
location to Lighthouse Writers Workshop (www.lighthousewriters.org).
However, we’re still running parts of the certificate program
in digital storytelling through the University of Colorado (www.storycenter.org/certificate.html).
We’re gearing up for the next round of workshops with the
Colorado History Museum, focusing on Denver’s 150th, as well
as the second workshop with the University of Colorado School of
Nursing, called Nurstory.
And we’re having the first CDS Train the Trainers workshop
in Colorado this coming June 23-28, on a community supported agriculture
(CSA) farm outside of Boulder! That course is filling up fast, so
find out more here: www.storycenter.org/ttt.html
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Los Angeles
We’re planning a Southern California Train
The Trainers for Workshop for Educators, now scheduled for August
2008.
We are also working with Neighbors Empowering Youth in North West
Pasadena, to host a Community Access Digital Storytelling Workshop
for community organizations interested in connecting community,
technology, and youth. If your L.A.-based organization currently
offers programs that connect community and technology and you’re
interested in expanding into digital storytelling, we hope you’ll
apply! Applications are available, contact gayle@storycenter.org
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East Coast
On the East Coast, we will be holding a special
customized training with educators at Kean University in late March-early
April. We also have workshops planned for Williams College in MA,
Swarthmore College in PA, and the University of Maryland at Baltimore
County (UMBC) in Maryland.
Stefani Sese will be speaking at American University’s School
of Communications in March.
Digital Storytelling - A Special Event
with Stefani Sese
American University Center for Social Media
March 27, 2008, 7-8 pm
Weschler Theater
3rd Fl., Mary Graydon Center
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016
FREE EVENT - OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Link to the AU Center for Social Media announcement
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/events/stefani_sese/865
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Open
Workshop Schedule
CDS has open workshops scheduled in various cities
in the US and Canada. If you are interested in developing an open
workshop in your city, please let us know. All workshops are $495
USD. Contact workshop@storycenter.org.
Updated information at www.storycenter.org/schedule.html.
Continuing Education Credit through Dominican University of California
and University of Colorado at Denver (2 CEUs).
Berkeley Open 3 day Basic Workshops:
At CDS, 1803 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley,
CA
2008 Dates:
April 17-19
May 15-17
May 21-23 (part of Train the Trainer Workshop)
June 26-28
July 17-19
August 14-16
October 16-18
October 22-24 (part of Train the Trainer Workshop)
December 11-13
2009 Dates:
January 15-17
February 11-13 (part of Train the Trainer Workshop)
March 19-21
May 14-16
June 18-20
June 24-26 (part of Train the Trainer Workshop)
August 13-15
Berkeley Educator Workshops
At CDS, 1803 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley, CA
2008 Dates:
June 18-20
August 20-22
2009 Dates:
April 6-8
June 15-17
August 19-21
Denver Open 3 day Basic
Workshops:
Lighthouse Writers Workshop, 2123 Downing Street, Denver
2008 dates:
April 24-26
May 28-30 (pending dates)
July 17-19
August 20-22
Los Angeles Open 3 day Basic Workshops:
Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts 145 N. Raymond Ave,
Pasadena, CA
2008 Dates
March 28-30
Washington, DC Open 3 day Basic Workshops:
Latin American Youth Center, Art & Media House
3035 15th Street, NW, Washington, DC
2008 dates:
March 26-28
May 14-16
June 5-7 (Workshop for Educators)
August 20-22
September 10-12
Berkeley Train the Trainer Workshops:
At CDS, 1803 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley, CA
2008 Dates:
May 19-24
October 20-25
2009 Dates:
February 9-14
June 22-27
Los Angeles Train the Trainer Workshop for
Educators:
San Bernardino Valley College, San Bernardino, CA
August 4-10, 2008
Lyons, CO Train the Trainer Workshop:
Stonebridge Farm, Lyons, Colorado
June 23-28, 2008
Chicago Open 3 day Basic Workshop:
November 19-21, 2008
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