Stories created during the five-day workshop were recorded in seven different local languages- a record number of different languages in a single workshop, in the 21-year history of the Center for Digital Storytelling. The young people who participated told personal stories of surviving and thriving in the aftermath of economic hardship, difficult relationships, teenage pregnancy, sexual assault, and sexually transmitted infections. Their powerful stories took shape as short films. The stories offer youth-friendly information, open up sensitive topics, and illustrate the need for improvements in adolescent sexual health services.
For many of the participants, the workshop represented the first time they had ever held a camera. After the group shared their stories, one participant, a No Yawa peer educator, said that even though she was sad to hear what others had spoken of, she was also moved to action. Another said “I am so humbled by all these stories. I always thought I went through the most terrible experience as a young boy until I heard others speak during the workshop. I feel so relieved after sharing my story, and I am happy I have shared it to help other young people.”
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This story was made in a workshop facilitated by StoryCenter in collaboration with The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
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"Ruthie Jordan shares her survivor of sexual assault experience through this compelling short film. She continues to stand for justice on a collective scale for all women – especially for Jini Barnum, a woman who is no longer present to stand and see her own justice transpire. Often times Deaf women are not aware of their rights when such assault occurs. Ruthie has produced this film to ignite hope and inspire courage within her community to stop allowing power play coercion acts to occur and advocate for yourself – YOU are worth it!"
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From the moment I met Bandana Rana in 2008, I sensed that we would work together. She runs SAATHI Nepal, which has for nearly twenty years been challenging violence and injustice against women at all levels of Nepalese society. We talked about the importance of bringing stories told by survivors into human rights dialogues, about the power of visual media, about the possibilities for storytelling in Nepal. It took time, but three years later the vision became a reality, when I traveled this past October to Kathmandu to begin a SAATHI – Silence Speaks Digital Storytelling partnership on the Voices for Justice project.
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In 2005 I was part of a group who produced stories about the impact of child sexual assault through StoryCenter’s Silence Speaks Initiative. Initially after viewing the stories at the end of the workshop, I felt curiosity and surprise at the immediacy of impact: I felt proud, visible, and necessary – quite different from how I had walked into the Berkeley lab feeling on the first day. What has become clear was that this process of internal re-structuring has continued to this day. Making Listening and Telling was the beginning.
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It was a weeknight in March, too warm for the time of year. I wore a sweater anyway, because it was windy – wind always makes me feel nervous. I’d met him once before, at a dining hall. When I showed up at the party, he came right over. He was polite, and funny…he got me a beer, we danced…we talked around each other, like we weren’t sure. He kept re-filling my cup…and I kept drinking, like I often did, back then; it took some kind of edge off.
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"My story is not something I try to forget. It would be especially hard because I have written many papers and spoken at many different events about my story. That is why I was so excited to have another opportunity to share it - because spreading awareness of the issue is a passion of mine. When creating my digital story about my incident with sexual assault, I didn’t realize how many details from that night I had tried to block out of my mind. The process brought flashback after flashback from that night. I do have to say that even though the process was a difficult for me emotionally, I definitely enjoyed the process. Seeing a finished product of me telling my story in a way I never had before was somewhat relieving. Now I can continue my healing process knowing that other people can now truly understand what that night was like from my perspective, and how the small details can make such a huge impact on a survivor’s life."
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My story closely mirrors the story of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). They are both about activism. I was raised by activists and teachers. Some people (like my mother) would say that I have always had an agenda. SAAM definitely has an agenda to prevent sexual violence. Working at the National Sexual Violence Resource, I am inspired by the activist stories I hear every day, but many people still feel very alone in this work. Digital storytelling is a vehicle for sexual assault prevention activists to capture their histories and build new futures.
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April is Sexual Assault Awareness month. StoryCenter is currently recognizing the importance of speaking out about rape and abuse by sharing new and archived pieces from our blog. Today, MA candidate Marit Erdal shares her work on the power of story to prevent violence against women.
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April is Sexual Assault Awareness month …
StoryCenter is currently recognizing the importance of speaking out about rape and abuse by sharing new and archived pieces from our blog.
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Grandpa Doug died a few weeks ago. He wasn’t my grandpa. He was my neighborhood’s grandpa. Always at the local elementary school being a handyman or there with his camera documenting the talent shows, the art exhibits, whatever was going on . . . even in the classes that his granddaughter wasn’t in.
We got to talking . . . and he started inviting me over for coffee. He was a coffee connoisseur, but not the kind that was snobby. He just knew a lot about it. I sheepishly asked for cream because I had heard that “real” coffee drinkers didn’t do that. He brought me cream. Happily. And we’d talk. We’d listen.
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As I was doing research for the first Sound and Story workshop , I discovered a bunch of cool resources that combine sound and story. Here are a few I wanted to share with you.
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I think a lot about digital storytelling. That’s a given, since I work for the Center for Digital Storytelling (StoryCenter) and facilitate digital storytelling workshops. I probably ponder too much. Just ask my family and friends. I know my colleagues at StoryCenter and practitioners around the globe would agree; we’re always on about storytelling, constantly trying to provide the best workshop experience possible.
Lately my obsession has expanded from the practice and process of digital storytelling – why we make them and how they’re facilitated, to the form and function of digital stories – what they are (or can be) and how they work. It’s been refreshing and even imaginative to consider the ‘production’ of a digital story rather than merely what the story is about.
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Did you miss StoryCenter's free public webinar, “How Storytelling and Participatory Media Can Support International Public Health and Human Rights Work”? Stephanie Buck of Until The Lions, a blog on the use of storytelling in international development, has written a great recap of the webinar.
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Last week, I had a beautiful birthday. I will admit that it was mostly due to Joe and his beautiful community. It is always weird to be the one entering a completely new world. Joe, in his letter about my birthday, mentioned the importance of that date for us. It is the moment that this story really began.
For me, birthdays have always been troubling. It is not because I am growing a year older. I am oddly at peace with my age, and I probably should be after it has been made public through this project everywhere. For an adoptee, a birthday is a memory of loss. It is the one day a year that you remember completely and without question that you once belonged to someone else.
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Every time I'm on Facebook I notice who is having a birthday. Social media is mainly distracting, but that little convenience, being reminded about a friend's birthday, somehow balances out the distractions. It feels great to say Happy Birthday to someone every day of the year.
I believe all lives deserve a shout out, at least once a year, if not 365, by a large number of people, who simply say, it is great you exist.
Tatiana turns 42 on Wednesday, November 26. In 1972, that date was on a Sunday. I imagine myself that weekend in 1972, aware that the birth mother was preparing to have a child, perhaps she had gone into labor the day before. I had asked to be there, but perhaps the home where Tatiana was born was not so keen on the idea of the birth dad's being present, or perhaps it was decided by our parents it was not the best. I know I never saw Tatiana at birth. I wonder what that would have been like.
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A couple of weeks back, I accidentally kicked my son’s twenty-five pound weight. It still hurt a couple of weeks later, so I went to a doctor. At the doctor’s office, I was given the medical form to fill out. I realized that this was the first time in forty-one years that I actually could fill out this form. I had all of the information. I briefly wondered if I should call Joe.
This is what it means to be adopted.
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We are writing to invite you to become part of a journey with us: a journey to explore the story of two people finding each other across 40 years of time, to look at the issues of adoptees and their families, and to make sense of what it means to construct family in the twenty-first century.
Our names are Tatiana Beller and Joe Lambert. We are both writers and media professionals. We are both steeped in the issues of story, of life, of culture. We were both born in Texas. We both have boys, 19 years old, one Sebastian, one Massimo Sebastian, born 2 weeks apart.
Joe is Tatiana's birth father. Tatiana is Joe's biological child. Father? Daughter? The names give us trouble. We are strangers who know each other in a very peculiar, a very profound, way.
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One fall morning, I step outside my door and listen. I’m amazed by how many sounds I hear. A bird calls; another answers. A gaggle of school children moves left to right, full of laughter and overlapping conversation. A dog howls and a woman says to a stranger, “Sorry, she’s really into squirrels.” And how could I have ever thought there was only one wind? This morning, the wind is a pastiche of rustles, slow and fast.
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World Contraception Day (September 26th) marked the premiere in Port Moresby of a collection of moving digital stories created by youth peer educators from around Papua New Guinea. The videos, which offer rare and thoughtful insights into deeply real issues that affect adolescents all over the world – peer pressure, first boyfriends, and fear of unwanted pregnancy – were shown to a theatre full of students and dignitaries, as well as members of the press and media, as part of a film festival organized by the United Nations.
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