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Best practices
Digital storytelling – a tool to tell a personal story and make your voice heard
#tool #empowerment #communication
The good practice in a nutshell
Digital storytelling is a simple method of sharing a personal story or a particular viewpoint on a certain topic. It offers insight into a person’s life and journey. The participant makes a short film, 1–3 minutes long, by editing together videos, several pictures, sounds, music, text, and/or his or her own voice. This gives the participants an opportunity to make their voice heard in society, to show that their voice counts.
During our training, participants created a digital story with focus on the following questions:
- What especially touched you during your participation in the training?
- How did you experience these months?
- What were your ‘joyful’ and ‘difficult’ moments?
To create a digital story, you should follow these steps
- Firstly, you should receive an introduction to digital storytelling from the trainer
- Choose the story you want to tell
- Do research: collect material (online research + saving pictures to the computer)
- Write a script, or make a storyboard
- Prepare your equipment
- Record videos and/or take pictures
- Write the text to go with your story + record the voice-over
- Choose the music
- Edit your story: edit the images and sound (music etc.)
- Finalise the video (add subtitles, export the video, etc.)
- Share your story
Developer or user
EVA bxl, Belgium
Target group
Job-seekers with a migration background (this tool can be used with people of different ages, education levels, and language backgrounds)
Why it is needed
Digital storytelling is used to empower people by giving them a voice through their personal story – because behind every human is a story. Furthermore, the method transcends language, which makes it suitable for use within this context.
Resources
The method requires:
- a person or organisation knowledgeable in creating digital stories
- materials
Expected outcomes
Participants:
- get empowered by having their voice heard through their personal stories
- reflect on their process and on the content that they learned in the courses
- enhance their digital, creative, social, and language skills
- cultivate a more positive self-image and grow more self-confident
- are stimulated to think creatively
Digital storytelling:
- stimulates participation
- creates interaction within the group
- creates connections and develops empathy among the members of the group, which creates a positive group dynamic
‘Do’s and ‘don’t’s
- The process takes five half-days (of 3 hours each).
- A group of 10 to 12 participants is ideal.
- Participants are often curious about the others’ results. Have a small presentation opportunity so that everyone can show his or her film.
- Pay attention to those who want to stay anonymous (sometimes, participants talk about sensitive subjects). Respect their decision.
- If the participant agrees, the video may be uploaded to YouTube so that family and friends can see the result.
Applicability
This method is easy to apply in different contexts and can be used with various target groups.
Quotes from the other project partners
‘This practice is good, because it is diverse and many-sided. The challenges: resources and equipment are needed.’ (Silta-Valmennusyhdistys, Finland)
‘Absolutely this practice could empower the migrants to valorise their talents.’ (Silta‑Valmennusyhdistys, Finland)