Community StoryWorks
Community Integrated StoryWorks (ISW) is created around a specific place. Stories are gathered from community members that share the chosen place. Stories are transcribed and provided to an artistic team to create an expressive arts project to be implemented by the community for the community.
The Process
Benefits
+ Increases community engagement.
+ Develops Embodied Empathy by having members take on the story or role of a relative or neighbor.
+ Celebrates community and the history, cultures and heritage of the place and its people.
+ Builds bridges of understanding and acceptance across lines of difference.
+ Develops strong bonds between participants.
+ Creates a sense of ownership of both personal and community stories resulting in an increased sense of agency.
+ Increases community resilience and capacity.
+ Provides opportunities for multigenerational engagement.
+ Makes space for voices that have been marginalized.
+ Fosters community pride and attachment.
+ Teaches respectful communication and identifies shared values.
+ Lays down the frame work for civil dialogue.
Who is it for?
Any group of people connected through a particular place. Places can range in size from a town to a neighborhood to a building to a single room. Places can include a county, a town, hospitals, churches and even natural spaces such a mountain, a river or a park.
