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The Power of Stories: Digital Storytelling
Firelight Foundation – The Power of Stories – Digital Storytelling
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Michaela Leslie-‐Rule MPA, MPH designed and contributed to the conception and implementation of this participatory video and documentation project with Firelight Foundation and it’s partners. Michaela is a social scientist and media maker whose work focuses on the use of storytelling to advance social change. Learn more about her work at www.factmemorytestimony.com
Project Overview: In January 2013, Firelight Foundation contracted Michaela Leslie-‐Rule to develop and implement a four-‐day participatory video training in Gisenyi, Rwanda and Nkhotakota, Malawi. The aim was to train a total of nine adolescent girls — defined as girls under the age of 19-‐years old — from three Firelight-‐funded community-‐based organizations (CBOs) funded under GGI 3.0, namely:
• Action pour le Developpement du Peuple (ADEPE) (Rwanda) • Association Tuvuge Twiyubaka (Rwanda) • Nkhotakota AIDS Support Organization (NASO) (Malawi)
Girls were trained to use Apple touch screen devices to document the change that each experienced in their own lives, in the lives of their family members, or in their community-‐at-‐large. In addition to the girls, each organization selected two staff members to ‘follow’ the training. The training supported objective two of the Grassroots Girls Initiative (GGI) by:
1) Building the capacity of the CBOs and girls to develop visual media skills. 2) Empowering girls to document their own stories. 3) Leveraging the girls’ stories by sharing them with a wider audience to attract more
resources for girls. 4) Documenting the most significant change in the lives of girls.
The training objectives aligned with the GGI long-‐term outcome of increasing evidence of girls’ agency and effect by providing a method for girls to document the range of actions they can take on their own behalf. Over the course of a 4-‐day training, participating girls in Rwanda and Malawi learned about the basic elements of visual storytelling, including how to:
• Define what they want their community and country to know about girls • Create a storyboard to frame the story they will tell • Use a video camera (construct and frame a shot, basics of lighting, etc.) • Identify interview subjects that will help them to tell their story and conduct the interviews • Use the iPod Touch to edit their footage to construct stories
In lieu of measuring empowerment directly, the girls were asked to create a collective definition and value statement for the digital storytelling. The following questions were used to guide the group discussion:
1) Why do we tell stories? 2) Why is it important to amplify girls’ voices? 3) What do you want your community, the nation, and the world to know about girls in your
country? The answers to these questions, generated on Day 1, helped to guide the photo and video exercises at each site. Girls revisited their answers preceding the storyboarding exercise (Days 3 and 4). In both Rwanda and Malawi the girls were asked to come to consensus around the
Annex 14 -‐ The Power of Stories – Digital Storytelling
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messages they wanted to share through their stories and the importance of sharing girls’ stories.
Girls review a video on an iPod touch
Malawi In Malawi the girls largely chose problem statements to articulate what the world needed to know about girls. The girls in Malawi agreed that they want the world to know that:
• Girls in Malawi are fighting for equality and are contributing to the development of their country
• All girls in Malawi should have access to free education • We have a lot of teen pregnancy • We have a lot of early marriage in Malawi • We have a lot of high school drop-‐out • Some girls in Malawi have been raped • Girls are abused in different ways
For their collective story, the girls in Malawi chose to focus on the problem of Teen Pregnancy, asserting that despite the problems girls face in Malawi, they are fighting for equality and by doing so, they are contributing to the development of their country. Rwanda In Rwanda, the girls chose to tell personal stories that related to messages that they wanted to share with their community, their nation, and the world.
• We want the community to know the contributions we make, and that we are able to participate equally in society
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• We want the country to know that all jobs have value. (There has been value placed on government and other “high level” jobs, but jobs such as tailoring are also important)
• We want the world to know that we want more opportunities to participate in the international market, and want to raise the visibility of the products made here
Follow-‐Up Action: Rwanda During the nine days following the training, Amanda Hill worked with the three girls supported by ADEPE to construct and complete their digital stories and to present them in a community-‐film festival. Amanda documented the event with still photos and audio. The following day, before departing for the second Rwanda location, Amanda interviewed training participants to gain insight on their experience during the training and digital-‐story creation process. Amanda then spent nine days in Nyamagabe District, where she provided similar support to the training participants at Tuvuge. A year later, the girls completed a Time 2 video. In addition, they trained additional girls to capture their stories. Finally, Michaela created an interview protocol to surface further information about the change that girls had experienced, both in the program and within the digital storytelling. Malawi In Malawi, girls from the school-‐based adolescent girls’ corners participated in training with Michaela. Due to their academic schedules, girls did not have the benefit of working with Michaela on capturing and editing their stories after the training. Michaela provided a Next Steps document that outlined the process for capturing and editing the stories. Girls later worked on capturing their stories during their school vacation at the end of March 2013. Michaela worked with Moses Chiwango, a NASO staff member, to teach him the skills covered during the training — in particular editing on the iTouch. The girls in Malawi did not get the same intensive support that the girls in Rwanda received. Because of the amount of time between their training and their personal storytelling, only one of the three girls completed both the Time 1 and the Time 2 videos. Malawi requested additional support on the video editing. Change: A year after producing their first videos, girls created a Time 2 video. They were also interviewed to understand the change that had happened to them because of participating in the digital storytelling. The interviews surfaced not only the change that happened to girls within digital storytelling, but in the overall initiative. Some were extensions of one experience, while others simply reinforced and consolidated a process that was already underway. Key themes that emerged from the changes experienced by the girls as a result of digital storytelling included:
• Healing and Connecting: Humans use storytelling to make sense of their lives. The process serves as both a reflective process, bearing witness to one’s life and a process of connecting
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to others who bear witness to our story and find shared meaning in our experiences. In fact, research studies have shown that those who tell or write their stories gain both physical and psychological benefits. The experience of the girls bears that out. The digital storytelling process had a healing power for the set of girls who went through the training and process. As Elina expressed, "This is because after I have told my story I feel peaceful and free inside. Whether in my heart or mind, I feel peaceful." That resonated with other girls as well, "Yes I believe I told my story as it should be done because the people I was telling my story paid attention, when you tell your story from the heart, you feel freed and relieved, " Clarisse shared.
That sense of internal peace also translated to a shift in their relationships, as shared by Benita, "My relationships with people are not the same as in 2013, I feel freer with them and it is the same with them they are free with me because I have changed. Before I used to walk with no confidence in me but after I told my story I felt like I had changed."
• Confidence and Respect: When people tell their story and get feedback from others, their
confidence grows. This happened for the girls who experienced the digital storytelling. In telling their stories to the trainers, their peers, families, community, and stakeholders, they got positive feedback about what they had accomplished. They received admiration for the success they had achieved. At the same time, girls got recognition from their peers. One of the girls, Agnes, captures it well, "They treat me like a very important person because they wonder how I was able to do it while some educated people are not able to do it or are not doing it but me who did not finish school I am able to do it and do it well!"
• Leadership and Influence: The girls who went through the digital storytelling training are
all unique in their personalities. Some are extroverted, while others more introverted. In spite of this, all those who went through training have emerged as leaders in their groups. "I did not have a role in my group before but now I am trusted. I have been chosen to be president and no one else could lead us. Since I have achieved some development they have made me their leader and I can even lead in other things," says Elina. While the process of the training may have nurtured the leadership, there is also evidence that storytelling itself is an effective leadership tool. In his book, Lead with a Story, consumer research executive Paul Smith shares what it takes for leaders to inspire employees, motivate change within their companies, or even simply connect with their teams. His conclusion is that in many large companies, the storytelling is used as an effective leadership tool, so much so that some companies train their executives in storytelling.
• Voice and Visibility: Digital storytelling also provided girls with voice, not only to tell their
story, but also to voice their perspective on their lives and the lives of girls in general. It provided them with a tool to capture and speak out. It also presented new opportunities for them to get in front of audiences where they were normally invisible, especially for this set of girls who are marginalized. Because of their experience, the girls have had audience with mayors and international development organizations. They have also been invited to national conferences to share their story, their perspective, and their skills. This has given visibility to girls, both their challenges and what they are capable of.
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Conclusion: The digital storytelling component of this initiative was introduced both to facilitate the process of helping girls capture and share their stories and also as a monitoring and evaluation tool. Its power lies in the fact that digital storytelling is the coupling of technology with the tradition of personal narrative. In this age of technology, it lends itself to amplifying girls’ voices because of the range of platforms that exist to disseminate the content. What is powerful about its application within this initiative is that it gives these tools to a population of marginalized girls who are often excluded from such technologies and platforms. More importantly, it provides girls with the power of shaping and sharing their own narrative in their own voice. It also makes it possible for that narrative to be heard in places that the girls would not otherwise reach. The process of the digital storytelling has proven to be more powerful than its original purposes. Preliminary analysis shows that four unexpected outcomes resulted for the girls who participated in the process: healing and connection, confidence and respect, leadership and influence, as well as voice and visibility. These four broad themes were particularly evident for the girls who went through the digital storytelling. But they are only part of the story. The overall story of change in the lives of girls was much broader. Evidence from the digital storytelling, videos, survey, and monitoring data show that girls emerged from this process with a power within, power to act, power to provide, power over, and power with. That larger story will be captured in an upcoming digital storybook, “Girls Empowered, Stories of Change.” While the story will capture the wider change in girls in the entire initiative, it will incorporate the digital stories captured by the girls themselves to convey the story. The digital e-‐book will be completed in September 2014.