Spreading the Stories
New England Digital Storytelling Capacity Building Institute
NEXT WORKSHOP: May 1, 8 & 9, 2007 at Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. Now accepting applications until April 17th.
Spreading the Stories is a a four-day intensive professional development workshop, where participants create digital stories—brief multimedia narratives combining voice, imagery and video. Through the creation of digital stories, organizations can reflect upon, learn from, document, and share stories that emerge through their practice. The workshop is free, and is intended as both a production and a train-the-trainer event, where participants leave with their own digital stories and the skills necessary to teach others the process.
To expand the reach of digital storytelling, MassIMPACT, along with Creative Narrations, launched Spreading the Stories in the fall of 2005. Twelve organizations’ staff from the Boston area were trained in 2005-6, and many of these organizations have since used digital storytelling to self-produce promotional materials, enhance programming, and secure grant funding. In addition to gaining practical skills, participants found inspiration in the creative process and unique networking opportunities among the participating organizations.
In this next round, participants from four to five organizations, selected in a competitive application process, will participate in each intensive training to learn multimedia and storytelling skills. At the end of the training, each organization will have 1-2 digital stories and a workplan for integrating digital storytelling into their work. Also, in an effort to foster a collaborative community of digital storytelling facilitators, participating organizations will participate in monthly meetings and/or follow-up trainings, an email list on StoriesForChange.net, and a MassIMPACT collective screening event TBA in Summer 2007.
Why focus on a theme?
In this next phase of the program, MassIMPACT intends to focus workshops on new communities, including (but not limited to) Asian, Latino, Cape Verdean, & Haitian groups and others in Western Massachusetts. In coalition with Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion (IBA) and Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, the workshop in March 2007 focused on incorporating digital storytelling into community programs in the South End to foster partnerships and inter-organizational programs and events.
MassIMPACT is going to offer a second workshop in May, which could focus on youth, intergenerational, and/or bilingual (or non-English speaking) themes. Media techniques used in the digital storytelling process, such as recording voice and adding subtitles, open up new opportunities for unheard members of the Boston community to express themselves in their own cultural tone and language and gain confidence in their speaking and writing skills. .
For more information on this program and an application, contact Danielle Martin, CTC VISTA at MassIMPACT, at 617-854-1765.
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The Digital Stories gallery requires QuickTime
Player,
which is a free download for Windows and Mac.
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