Our Story - Storytelling for LGBTQIA+ Community Wellbeing, Manual of good practices

Aims of the tool

The manual aims to give youth workers, trainers and organisations practical tools to use storytelling and creative methods with LGBTQIA+ young people. It helps them create safe(r), inclusive and accessible learning environments and supports young people in turning their personal stories into a source of wellbeing, visibility and social change. It also shares what we learned during the Our Story project, so that other organisations, Erasmus+ projects and policymakers can make youth work more inclusive of LGBTQIA+ people.

Description of the tool

Our Story — Storytelling for LGBTQIA+ Community Wellbeing is a 168-page manual co-created by five organisations from Spain, Greece, Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic within an Erasmus+ KA220 cooperation partnership. It brings together the methods we developed and tested during two international training courses, in Vilanova i la Geltrú and Prague, and a series of local activities in each partner country.

The manual is organised in ten chapters. It opens with the context of the project and a shared language of key concepts. It then offers an LGBTQIA+ code of conduct for youth projects and guidance on building safer, braver and accessible spaces. The core of the manual explores storytelling as a tool for wellbeing and social change. It presents the Storytelling Synthesis Model and more than 30 step-by-step activities based on collage, zines, visual arts and theatre. Further chapters cover digital storytelling and podcasting as participatory action research with LGBTQIA+ refugees, strategic planning for youth-led social and cultural change, and self-assessment tools for civic competences and reflective learning. The manual closes with our learnings and policy recommendations for youth work and Erasmus+ structures, plus annexes with practical templates. It is grounded in thinkers such as bell hooks, Miranda Fricker and Martha Nussbaum, and written in an accessible tone for practitioners without specialist knowledge.

After using the manual, youth workers and trainers will be able to:

design and facilitate storytelling and arts-based workshops with LGBTQIA+ young people
create and maintain safe(r) and accessible learning spaces, and apply a code of conduct in their projects
use shared, respectful language around gender and sexual diversity
support young people in sharing personal narratives ethically, with care and consent
use digital tools such as podcasts to amplify community voices
guide young people in planning their own initiatives for social change
accompany reflective learning and competence self-assessment, including in Youthpass processes

The manual is published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence and is freely available at ourstory-community.eu.