What is your story and why does it matter? We all have the power to tell our own stories and the stories of the world around us.

But why is this important? And how do you tell your own story?

In our YOUR STORY workshops, girls and young women learn about the power of their OWN story and the power of stories of girls and young women around the world.

YOUR STORY workshops start with the basics: what telling your own story actually means and how to use basic journalism tools to tell your story and the stories around you. 

How do you interview someone? How do you decide the best way to tell a story? How does a photo tell a story? 

In our interactive workshops girls and young women learn the basic skills to change the world by sharing. 

Your Story Workshops: 

We have five basic workshops. Your Story I - The Power of Story and the Basics, Your Story II - The Interview, Your Story III - Telling a Story Through Photos, Your Story IV - Telling a Story Through Video, Your Story V - Your Story

Your Story I is the building block for the other workshops. In many cases, teams may only have 30 minutes to 1 hour to spend with us, especially when we are in countries or communities for a limited amount of time, and we like to start with the basics. Following this workshop, teams choose to go on to other workshops depending on their interest or desired focus. Many times we work with teams and organizations to craft a workshop unique to who they are and their community. The ideal time for each workshop is 45 minutes to one hour, but we can customize workshops to shorten or lengthen the sessions. For example, for our younger players, we have found that 30 minutes is just right for our intro course.

Your Story I - The Power of Story and the Basics: In our primary workshop we go over the nuts and bolts of a story, why it matters that your story is told, and how to tell yours. We cover how you decide what story you might want to tell, how to interview someone, and what a story arc is.  The goal of this primary workshop is to set the learners up to walk away understanding how powerful stories are, why their stories matter, and the basics to help them start to tell, capture, record, and share these stories. This can extend into - how to set up for a basic interview with a camera or how to take a photo that will tell your story depending on time and age.

Your Story II - The Interview: In this workshop we cover what an interview is, how to set yourself up to do a good interview, what to do during an interview, and what you do after you have completed the interview. The participants practice different techniques and interview teammates to put their new tools to work. Depending on accessibility for teams, this can extend to interviewing with a camera or audio recording device. 

Your Story III - Telling a Story Through Photos: In this workshop we talk about the power of images, specifically still images, to tell a story. We dig into what the students think about certain photos and what stories they tell. Students practice taking photos and sharing the stories behind them. 

Your Story IV - Telling a Story Through Video: In this workshop we talk about the power of images to tell a story, specifically video and moving images. We go over the basics of setting up a phone to record an interview, how to shoot video that will help tell the story you want to tell, and figuring out what your final story might look like. Students take their hand at setting up for video interviews and shooting video. 

Your Story V - Your Story: In this workshop, we work with participants to help them tell their own story - as a team or as individuals. We work to create a plan for how they will tell the story and get them started. This can result in a team newsletter or newspaper, a short video, an audio diary, a photo story shared on Instagram, etc. (This is a more involved workshop, and we usually only do this with teams or organizations who have gone through most of the other workshops.)