Tell your story

 

Tell Your Story aims at exploring the use  of  digital  storytelling  and  story mapping  in  education  to combat early school leaving.

 

What has been done so far?

 

From 18th to 22nd September 2017 the Tell Your Story training course took place in Palermo, at CESIE. The project involved 18 NEETs from 16 to 25 years old – young people who are not in education, employment, or training – and 1 trainer per partner organisations coming from 6 different countries: France, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, UK and Belgium.

The youngsters, selected for their common early school leaving experience, had the opportunity to spend 5 intensive days sharing their stories through several tools. They have been able to deepen what storytelling means and which are the ways to tell a story, focusing then on digital storytelling.

Here they explored the ArcGIS platform, a tool provided by EUROGEO – European Association of Geographers to create personalised maps. Connecting with their own emotional past experience, participants revisited their personal life’s moments and selected some memories to integrate in their personal storytelling. The content has been thus transformed in a creative shape within ArcGIS platform and shared with the rest of the group on the last day.

The laboratory achieved very positive results among the participants: it clearly gave many young people the opportunity to compare life experiences different from theirs, to tell and share with others their own personal stories and to gain new digital tools to do it.

 

 

Testimonies

 

“It was an unique experience! We have started the training course without knowing each other, but everyone had the chance to tell their story through various digital tools we learned to use. After only a week we managed to create a familiar atmosphere. The best thing is that we are all in touch, close to each other, despite the distance and diversity. ”

Arianna, Italy

 

“Using my Franglish which I have well mastered, I started to divulge some aspects of my personal story, while I learnt about the stories of my companions, thanks to recreational activities (drawings, videos, recordings). The line between laughing and crying is very thin. This week of experimentation provided a lot of new discoveries and emotional connections. I came back to France with thousands of memories and a growing will to continue exploring our planet Earth.”

Charlène, France

 

“I'm now in college and in the process of joining the army. I myself went off the rails when I was younger and was thrown out of school. I could have followed some of my peers who went into crime. But I have not. I feel lucky to have gone to Palermo and met these kids. I would definitely encourage children to stay on at school and study. The world has many pitfalls. But also there are many good things you can do if you try and apply yourself.”

Danny, United Kingdom

 

“This experience enabled me to understand that each story is different and that not one has more value than the other. Throughout the week, we were presented with different ways to digitalize our stories and to demonstrate their true value. I left, however, with a level of frustrations regarding some of the things I would have liked to have seen or learnt, such as how to highlight a person's value and how to improve their self-esteem. After all, I think I had that feeling because I was really interested in the training and I really wanted to know more about it. In conclusion, the training was very interesting and sharing it with all the participants made it even better. ”

David, France

 

“Telling your life story is not something that you can share with everyone but I had no problem to share it with other group members because the energy between us was genuine. I think that we got along great and in this short time we really became friends.”

Denis, Slovenia

 

“I could put words on my past experiences, as well as project me on my future. Given that I wish to become an educator, I think the seminar could be a tool that I will use within the structures where I will work. An experience that was useful to me professionally, culturally and humanly.”

Etienne, France

 

“I really enjoy the storytelling method, I also made new friends! I would also like to do it again and again. Never give up.”

Godfrey, Italy

 

“The training course has been very important for me, it allowed me to develop and strengthen my competences. During the training course, I felt comfortable to express myself and it allowed me to know more from people by listening to their stories. It allowed me to speak about my own story and understand the story of the others through their maps, drawing etc. Today, I can share my life story by creating my own StoryMaps!”

Hermione, Italy

 

“I would say my largest contribution to this workshop was working on the projects with the most effort and even illustrating a digital story. I would say my greatest take away from this was meeting the people there and hearing the many stories that they had to tell. I think I know more about some of these people now than I do about some of my oldest friends.”

Moses, United Kingdom

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Events

 

This training course will be soon followed by a piloting phase which will be run at local level by every partner:

• to test all the modules foreseen by the project;
• to produce results and share them in the publication Preventing early school leaving through maps and digital stories.