This section explores projects that showcase the range of goals and outcomes for digital storytelling. The examples also show how different groups of participants groups can use digital storytelling.
Voices Influencing Change
The Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition recognized the extensive knowledge that people with lived experience have to offer. They created a five-week program to build public speaking and leadership skills. Participants gain confidence sharing their stories in ways that are comfortable for them. The training program supports participants on their healing journeys and also helps them use their voice to inspire others (Homer, 2019).
Learn more about this project on Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition.
Empower Project
For the Empower Project, youth participants created digital stories as part of a larger capacity building training. Digital stories gave participants an opportunity to explore their roles as HIV peer educators and issues such as homophobia and transphobia, homelessness, racism and identity, gender, colonialism, violence, and more. In addition to providing technical instruction, project facilitators took care to provide emotional support for participants throughout the process. Participants also provided support for each other to ensure they choose stories they were comfortable sharing and that would not be any regrets later.
Learn more about this project on YouthRex.
Making Visible
The Making Visible project aimed to use digital stories to increase the visibility of homelessness among women and gender-diverse people. Peer Researchers attended a 10-week workshop where they honed their writing, filming, and editing skills with support from project facilitators. Peer Researchers are team members with lived experience of the topics being examined in the research project. Peer Researchers carry insight and knowledge about the community and barriers that traditional researchers may not be aware of. Peer Researchers are lived experts who have a greater role in the execution of the research.
Learn more about this project on Sistering.
Nindibaajimomin
In 2013, the Oral History Centre in the Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Guelph, hosted Nindibaajimomin to explore digital storytelling on the intergenerational experiences of Residential Schools. The intense, one-week workshop gave participants the necessary tools and skills to share their unique and personal journeys. One participant applied what she learned in a research study exploring the experiences of For example, one project explored the challenges, barriers and opportunities faced by Indigenous youth transitioning from foster care (Bennett, 2019). The stories revealed that the youth experienced difficulties on their journey to adulthood, but also their resilience.
Learn more about this project on Oral History Centre.
References
Bennett, M. (2019). Digital storytelling with First Nations emerging adults in extensions of care and transitioning from care in Manitoba. Journal of Concurrent Disorders, 1(3), 58-77.
Homer, A. (2019). Engaging people with lived/living experience. A guide for including people in poverty reduction. Tamarack Institute.
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