I thought this was very right on. Puts a strong emphasis on the importance of telling your stories. While not geared specifically to programs, I think you can find the similarities.
What is the Community Digital Storytelling Movement? Why Story? What goes on in a typical Community Digital Storytelling Workshop?
The most powerful gift we have in our communities is our stories, traditions and cultures of resistance. In that vein, for us in TWM, story is at the center of what a lot of people call the connection between theory and practice (or the thoughts about your organizing, and your actual organizing). Because it is your individual or community story that drives you as a person to fight and grounds your intellectual foundation for your work.
The power of story in organizing is its ability to
create empathy and build relationships between
different people and communities by connecting both the storyteller and the listener within a common narrative. That connection is powerful, and from that connection personal stories have the ability to touch the hearts of viewers and move both the storyteller and the listener to create a shared political view of the world...and then of course, move towards joint action.
There are lots of different reasons though that
communities tell stories. We feel like there are three main broad categories of stories that can best be described as the kind of relationships desired from the listening to these stories.
Stories outside of Communities for Advocacy:
There are certain stories communities tell
specifically outside of their community to official bodies within society like the City Council, the legislature, the U.N. or the mainstream media to effect the messaging of some issue that is being decided in a larger forum than within the community. These advocacy pieces have a direct agenda and while may be specific to the communities experience around a particular issue their official audience will require the piece to be persuasive, use pertinent facts to
sway uninformed or borderline folks to their issue, and will not necessarily reveal sensitive or controversial issue within the community to a larger audience.
Stories between communities for coalition-building:
While many communities have shared experiences of
struggling against racism, classism, sexism,
colonialism and the loss of our resources and lands to these systems of oppression, it is rare that we get to build across our communities by hearing our individual stories of heartbreak, loss, and resistance. Sometimes the pain of communities is so deep that as survivors within these communities we have been able to move on(but not necessarily heal) because we have lost the words and parts of ourselves as we bury the stories of these painful experiences.
But, part of the healing of these deep pains can come from hearing a story that puts a voice to your particular struggle. That is one of the magical powers of stories. Stories are never ends within themselves. Stories give birth and open space for other stories. When communities can bear witness to their joint experiences, a powerful connection can be built as the storyteller and listener give name to a shared pain which may have different details but is part of a larger story of our communities resistance.
These coalition building stories are often more
intimate then advocacy pieces, and share to a degree the specific details about a communities particular experience that can help another community give voice to a similar understanding or experiene. While coaltion-building may be specifically referenced in the piece, more often that not the story itself is an artifiact of the relationship being built and can be used in discussions or outreach sessions for communities in a variety of contexts.
Stories within communitites to reaffirm values,
wisdom, and history:
With much of the technology that we use to tell our stories coming from a direct legacy of anthropological vouyrerism, colonialism and surveillance many of communities have a history of trauma and betrayal with the camera that is difficult to overcome. Once those initial fears have been addressed, there is something
remarkable about picking up the camera and telling our stories to each other in all the raw strength and intimacy that is different from what we share with each other every day.
Our stories are a reflection of our values, wisdom, and history that we have stubbornly kept with us despite a massive institution push for us to forget and destroy them. The fact that we have nourished their survival, and use them to renew and nourish us in our darkest times reflects the need we have to continue to tell and retell our stories in new mediums on our terms.
These internal stories of communities are the
tenderest accounts of our experiences, and use
specific image, language and terms that only those
within the community may know. It is okay to use these specific details that are exclusive to your communitiy because the stories that some communities tell are meant to ONLY be told within that particular community. The fact that some details and histories are secret and sacred to only that community reaffirms that communities right to determine the use of their image and culture and is huge part of our moving towards a time when all of our communities are free.
http://www.storycenter.org/