KA2_Speak Up! Storytelling Challenge

In folklore of many European countries stories are considered medicine. Being present with yourself and the audience and speaking from the heart is healing not only for the storyteller but also to those who listen. Stories are what we are all made of. There’s no day we live without a story. The only difference between those stories is that some are told and heard and some are never seen and never shared. With this project we would like to inspire youth to Speak up! What is alive for them to become active shapers of their realia.

The main aim of our project is to raise awareness about storytelling as a tool for young changemakers to initiate dialogue and shape their communities so that they contribute to creating an inclusive society where there’s respect for human dignity and cultural diversity.

With this project we aim to create a flexible digital solution for storytelling as a tool for sharing diversity and changemaking. The main output of the project will be an online platform which will engage youth in learning and developing their competencies.

The online platform will consist of the following modules.
What is storytelling? How to tell stories so that others want to listen? How do I make an impact with my stories? How do I own my story? How to alleviate fears and share what is important for me? How do I present my story? How Do I Present Stories of others? How do I use various media of writing/oral storytelling/audio/painting/etc. To tell stories?
What is social inclusion and social exclusion? What are different kinds of social exclusion? How do I communicate differences encountered in my communities?
This project will lead to not only improving storytelling competencies of youth. We believe that we shouldn’t stay silent when injustices or oppression happen around in our communities. With this project we would like to explore how youth could actively engage in shaping their communities:
How do I engage in my community to make an impact with stories? How do I practice sharing stories? How do I practice speaking up? How can I engage my community in speaking up and sharing what is important? How to speak up against social exclusion? How the way we speak up could shape our communities to make them more inclusive?
The participants of the project will gradually transform the knowledge and competencies gained into their own storytelling projects to raise awareness about social inclusion and social exclusion under a coordinated online campaign.

Once the content of the event is created, we will involve 70 young people from various EU countries in a 21-days online storytelling challenge with social inclusion and social exclusion as key topics considered. Through various learning engagements and active practice we would like to make storytelling a habit for the participants so that at the end they can apply it any time they wish to be civically engaged and shape the communities they live in, as well as advance in their own lives.

We plan to use the platform also in the future for hosting similar storytelling exchanges online. The platform could also be used by youth workers in their home countries since it will be in open access.

Results in the groups of participants:
Raise awareness about social inclusion and social exclusion;
strengthen their skills and competences, boost confidence, etc.
Become more motivated to tell their stories and be active in sharing in their communities;
If they have great ideas but they don’t know how to shape them… this project will help them;
Connect to peers and gain new friendships
To be published in media;
Proposal for future projects to meet for a live event;

Impact in a community:
We will involve stakeholders, such as local journalists, media, filmmakers. Young people will involve various stakeholders as well through the storytelling projects they will do. Among assignments in the storytelling challenge we will have such as:
Interview someone from your local community about…
Interview your local municipality to share a story…
Interview your relatives to share the history of your family…
Etc.
We will publish those stories online and will select 5 stories to publish in local media channels (TV, newspapers, radio); Also we will select 3 stories to make short documentaries;

The project is important as it presents an effective and flexible digital activation strategy for young people and their communities.

This project is important for youth to engage in networking with like minded individuals for creating future collaborations and projects to shape our communities locally and internationally. This project is also important to have an ongoing dialogue about:
A vision of a world we would like to live in;
Making difference locally and engaging in shaping our communities from digital spaces (possible youth initiatives locally and internationally);
Social inclusion and social exclusion;
With this project we would like to not only offer space for sharing and digital dialogue among youth, but also use the digital space we will create to initiate change.
Project Timeline
When What How (format, methods, description)
January - Preparation phase;
February - Kick off meeting with partners;
March - May - Development of content for the online platform, building the platform;
Jun - Testing the platform; Second transnational meeting with partners;
July-August - Launching the Storytelling Challenge;
September - October - Multiplier events;
November - December - Evaluation meetings and planning next Storytellig Challenges in 2022

PLEASE send us your PIF form to cultureworldme@gmail.com before 20th of September.
Also, indicate what could be your unique contribution tot he project and how you like to engage.

NOTE, we only look for partners who have experience in Storytelling or have strong motivation to work on the topic.