Write Your Creative Story Toolkit by Info Front

TOOLKIT of systematised digital tools based on

digital storytelling and digital creative text writing

НАЦИОНАЛНА АГЕНЦИЈА ЗА ЕВРОПСКИ ОБРАЗОВНИ ПРОГРАМИ И МОБИЛНОСТ

INDEX About the project Local context North Macedonia The Netherlands Germany Spain Digital Storytelling Introduction to Digital Storytelling The Power of Storytelling Storytelling for Young People Storytelling tools for Youth Workers Fiction Digital Guidelines to the Digital Storytelling Toolkit Terminology Phases of a workshop session Labels of the exercises The Digital Storytelling Workshop Workshop session 1: Introduction and Team Building Creating a safe environment Exercises for Team Building Workshop session 2: Creating a Story in Theory Storytelling Theory: The Three Pillars of Storytelling Narrative structure Imaginative telling Making contact Workshop session 3: Creating a Scene: Fun and Fiction Triggering Creativity Fiction Disclaimers Workshop session 4: Creating Engaging Stories

1 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 15 16 17 18 18 18 19 19

INDEX The Tree of Life The Web Association Closing and Evaluation Model Digital Storytelling Workshop Session 1: Introduction and Teambuilding (2-3 hours) Session 2: Creating a Story in Theory (2-3 hours) Session 3: Creating a Scene: Fun and ﬁction (2-3 hours) Session 4: Creating Engaging Stories (2-3 hours) Tips & Tricks Get out of your comfort zone Handling emotions Guaranteeing equality Working with Diﬀerent Cultures Working with groups Dealing with disabilities Recruitment Digital Storytelling Toolbox Exercise 1: Check-in, Check-out Exercise 2: The Name Game Exercise 3: Scars Exercise 4: Story Dice Exercise 5: Your Adventure Exercise 6: Press & Tell Exercise 7: Picture Your Memory Exercise 8: Create a Scene Exercise 9: You Are the Hero I Exercise 10: You Are the Hero II Exercise 11: The Character Exercise 12: The Location Exercise 13: Just a Normal Day Exercise 14: Worst Case Scenario

20 21 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 23 24 24 24 25 25 26 27 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

INDEX Exercise 15: Trivial Questions Exercise 16: Take Something Exercise 17: Tree of Life Exercise 18: Web of Association Loesje What Loesje Is All About Solidarity Anti-Authoritarian Sexually Free Being Decisive Showing Initiative A-Religious Equality Being Independent Loesje Creative Text-Writing Workshops 1. Preparations 2. The Beginning 3. Warmp-Up Activities A Story 3.1. Variations on the Story Newspaper Article A Postcard Hulkie-kulkie or “My grandma always says…” 3.2. Techniques used by Loesje Association Contradiction Comparison Exaggeration Stimulation/Suggestion Turnaround Question

41 42 43 44 45 46 46 47 47 47 47 48 48 48 49 49 49 50 50 51 51 51 51 52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52

iii

INDEX 4. Collect Topics/Subjects and Writing 5. Voting, Selecting Texts & Final Editing 6. Ending the Workshop Loesje Final Editing Loesje Posters Loesje has a Family The Kid Brother Cousin Carl Aunt Rita Grandpa Grandma Mother Father Uncle Henry Lay-outing the Texts About the Partners Info Front - Prilep / North Macedonia Storytelling Centre / The Netherlands Loesje E.V. / Germany Cazalla Intercultural / Spain Useful Links, Tips & Advice

52 54 54 55 55 55 56 56 56 56 56 56 57 57 57 59 59 60 61 62 63

ABOUT THE PROJECT "Write your creative story" aims to improve the quality of youth work across the EU regarding development of skills and inclusion through creativity and arts. These skills of the youngsters can foster improvement of their involvement in every sphere in society. During the Covid-19 crisis, many youngsters felt detached from their daily activities, and through the creative text writing and storytelling, we'd like to achieve improved inclusion of this category, to improve cohesion, to find common ground and to start interacting and connecting with one another. Our objective is to support educators, youth workers and facilitators by enhancing their skills and competences through a Digital Toolkit consisting of new digital tools and workshops that can be performed online and a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) for additional education and inclusion. We want to focus on digital development of youth workers (social workers, artists working with youth, educators), because the traditional youth work in the non-formal education process and programmes is based on methods that require physical presence of the participants. Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, the physical presence became an obstacle and was not recommended. Of course, this varies from a country to a country, but most of the non-formal educational process is transferred online and is rushed, unprepared and finally- postponed or delayed. It’s a fact that in the year 2020, the world got into one of the biggest crisis situations lately- the Covid-19 pandemic, and all the people around the world certainly weren’t prepared for it. This drastically affected young people in many different negative ways like: economically, mentally, physically and socially. The young people during this period of quarantine, lockdown, restrictions etc. had a lot of free time that they didn’t know how to use productively and beneficiary. Because of this, the development of their creativity was affected- it was decreasing and/or stagnating. It affected the social interaction of young people too. We as partners in this project, all active in the youth work, fully endorse to this conclusion. The main objective of the project is developing new and innovative tools: Digital Toolkit and a MOOC based on digital creative text writing and digital inspirational storytelling, that can be used for boosting creativity of young people, inclusion and social connection among them. We chose these two fields deliberately, because in our experience, they showed to be effective, successful and popular. Combining these two will helps young people connect, find similarities, resocialise and become more active and creative.

ABOUT THE PROJECT Other important objectives of this project are: - Enhancing skills & competences of youth workers; - Strengthening collaboration and cooperation between partner organisations. Target groups: - primary: youth workers, educators, artists, cultural workers etc. - secondary: youth facing decrease of creativity/motivation. Storytelling as a method, existing of a set of exercises, provides the target groups: - possibility to talk about differences and similarities; - skills to listen to one another, to create mutual respect and understanding and to give the youth a future perspective; - self-confidence and self-respect; - collaboration skills; - intercultural communication skills; - ability and skills to structure thoughts; - expression skills; - discussion skills. The creative text writing provides the target groups with: -building confidence; - improvement of artistic self-expression; - imagination boost; - thought clarification; - better understanding of the mechanics of reading and writing; - improvement of empathy and communication skills; - better mental, emotional, and physical health.

LOCAL CONTEXT NORTH MACEDONIA The field of youth work nowadays faces many challenges regarding working with physical presence, which was the well-known, traditional way. Our direct work with young people, like organising sessions, workshops etc. faced a stagnation in this last period of restrictions, lockdown, curfew etc. Youth workers lack concrete digital skills and tools, but also guidelines on how to work with young people, how to facilitate creative sessions with young people. We’re in need of this kind of Toolbox and session structures, with which we can learn and promote further new innovative methodology. We intend to help and support the facilitation process online for youth workers/ educators, in order to stimulate and raise the creativity of young people. In order to stimulate the creativity of young people in North Macedonia, we as applicant organisation initiated this project, together with the partners in this consortuim. We needed to develop or readapt methodology that can be useful for all organisations in our country that are facing the same issues. We thought that the best ways of stimulating creativity was storytelling and creative writing. We thought of selecting these methods, because they function well and are suitable for any type of personality of young people. Also with this kind of methodology and digital tools, we can work on distance even after the end of the pandemic, we can extend our work online when necessary, in order to provide possibilities for participation of young people who are facing obstacles for physical presence. We hope that with this Toolkit we’ll contribute to successful implementation of everyday activities of youth organisations that are in need of new methodology for digital or online facilitation. These methods are specially designed and developed for boosting the creativity of the participants, for fostering inclusion and finding common ground for youngsters coming from different backgrounds.

LOCAL CONTEXT THE NETHERLANDS The recent COVID-19 pandemic has affected a lot of people in the whole world. The Netherlands is no exception to this. Even with their initial ‘intelligent lockdown’ in which the country’s package of measures looked relatively relaxed compared to other European countries like Belgium, Italy or France, negative socio-economic consequences have supplanted the initial optimism of the Dutch. Unfortunately, in every crisis, it is the most vulnerable groups in a society that feel the impact the most. (1) The focus of the government was mainly on the number of infections and the number of patients. Next to that, they wanted to make sure that the economy of the country would not be hit too hard. However, other aspects, such as loneliness, mental health and social assistance/work were not on the top of their mind. Suddenly, for a long and unsure time, social workers had to rethink their way of staying in contact with their (mostly vulnerable) client as their help is mainly based on proximity and face-to-face contact. (2) Working from home, on online platforms like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, and social distancing became the norm and was presented as something that was applicable for everyone in the Dutch society. In reality, social workers felt as if these general rules were not fitting for their clients or for their work. Not finding the right answer from the government and pressured by the feeling of not wanting to lose time, they had to reinvent themselves quickly online. The last two years, they have been gone by like on autopilot. Online help as well as other short-term solutions were sometimes comforted by incidental financial aid from the government. Another typical Dutch thing that played a role into the social workers having to take matters into their own hands is the general tendency of individual autonomy and self-reliance. It is a tendency that is fueled by their liberal ways and that makes that authorities will not implicate themselves easily. It’s all about general rules and trusting the citizens to find their own way with it. (3) As it feels as if the pandemic is coming to an end, social workers are finally able to breathe again. At the same time, there is a general feeling in their field that they must structurally rethink their work. Not only to walk away from the sole dependency on physical presence, but also to be better prepared if another crisis or pandemic will come our way. Both education and practice are already suiting the action to the word and taking initiative. (4) In this they are also looking at developing new (and fun!) competencies in social work. (5) It is in this search that the knowledge of organizations such as Storytelling Centre and Loesje Berlin might come in handy. --------------------------------(1) https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/covid-19-consequences-impact-vulnerable-groups-more-in-long-term (2) https://sociaal.net/verhaal/birsen-taspinar-hulpverlening-in-tijden-van-pandemie/ (3) https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211203-dutch-covid-surge-fuelled-by-liberal-ways-say-experts (4) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02615479.2020.1823363 (5) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02615479.2020.1823363

LOCAL CONTEXT GERMANY Creative writing, by definition, involves being ‘creative’: making things up, letting your imagination run wild. Essays are about being factual and objective, communicating ideas and arguments in the clearest way possible and attempting to enhance the reader’s knowledge, rather than their imagination. Loesje, as an organisation- writers collective and a fictional character - a young girl from the Netherlands, who wants to make our world a more positive, creative place. Loesje texts are mostly positive and funny, and at the same time critical, wanting to stimulate the viewers to see things from new perspectives, and take action in their own lives. Loesje texts are not trying to tell you what to think; instead they often invite to many different interpretations. Most of the people involved in Loesje are young, but there are no age limits. You don’t have to subscribe to any particular opinions to join Loesje, but the activities are based on a humanistic value base, which means believing in the power of and solidarity between people, and refrain from social exclusion. Loesje wants to interact with people, so that anyone can see and be inspired by her posters without having to pay an entrance fee or buying a specific magazine. The Loesje groups make practical use of their freedom of speech by writing and spreading their texts on posters. Freedom of opinion and expression are basic human rights, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the last years, Loesje has conducted many successful international projects about Human Rights. In some countries where Loesje is present, freedom of speech is part of the constitution and commonly practised. In others, censorship is wide spread and the possibilities for a normal citizen to spread opinions without persecution few. Anyone is welcome to join making the posters in text writing workshops, and to join other creative activities and projects. The posters are published here on the Internet, where anyone can freely download them, print them and hang them up. However, nowadays, because of fast way of living and lately, during the Covid-19 restrictions, it's very difficult to gather the participants in the same space. That's why we intend to develop new digital methodology, to transfer the Loesje methodology in a digital way, to answer the challenges of today.

LOCAL CONTEXT SPAIN In Spain, young people study a formal curriculum in which learning new knowledge is very important, but which does not always pay attention to the practical and creative dimension of human abilities. Young Spaniards regularly attend formal education, but there is not as much supply and demand for nonformal education activities, where they can develop other skills and feel free to explore their creativity without fear of making mistakes or not meeting certain expectations. On the other hand, the pandemic has locked down young people to their homes and imposed the need for online tools to work with them. Educators and youth workers have been forced to develop these tools at great speed and adapt their methodology from face-to-face to online, which is a great challenge and it is necessary to create and facilitate these tools for professionals. Since Cazalla Intercultural is running the youth centre and work directly with young people, we always look for the tools that can ﬁt into what the young people needs – meaning fun activities, creative, engaging, where they can express themselves in the creative way and acquire skills which are useful on the labour market. We are excited to learn from our partners methods based on the digital storytelling and digital creative writing as we believe that those tools are exactly what young people need. As an organisation directly involved in Erasmus+ Programme, we organise many KA105 youth exchanges and mobility of youth workers. For this, we are in constant need of new methodology to implement in the next projects. On the other hand, we facilitate local projects that include local youngsters coming from diﬀerent categories. In times of restriction and challenges that come from the Covid-19 pandemics, we can use these new tools and methods and we can always enrich our toolboxes that we have at our disposal with this new methodology.

DIGITAL STORYTELLING

INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL STORYTELLING The Write Your Creative Story (WYCS) project partners developed a Digital Storytelling Toolbox that helps European youth workers to host a successful online workshop that stimulates youths to enjoy creativity while making stories. To do so, the project’s partners have created a combination of written and verbal storytelling tools: interactive (group) exercises that will help youth workers teach youths the art of storytelling. But ﬁrst allow us to explain the power of storytelling.

The Power of Storytelling Storytelling, creating and sharing stories together, is increasingly being discovered as a strong tool to put social processes in motion. Storytelling involves both the narrator and the listener and brings them in contact with each other, which make storytelling projects valuable for projects aimed at connecting people in a fun and creative fashion. This digital storytelling method focuses on sharing stories; about telling and about listening. Everybody can tell a story! We are storytelling beings. It’s a talent with which we are naturally gifted, although not everyone is aware of it. In storytelling projects, we do not teach people to tell a story. We only make them aware of their ability to do so. The method is based on the knowledge that everyone can extract meaning from his or her own creativity and life. Creating a story is dealing constructively with change, uncertainties, or other things we have no inﬂuence over. 8

Doing so, a storyteller gives meaning to life and increases grip on their current situation, making it easier to cope with the unpredictability and uncertainties of life. The WYCS project partners are convinced that in a balanced, culturally diverse society, there should be space for everyone's story especially in times of intercultural tensions. In an everchanging society we see it as a necessity to provide a platform for all those stories, in real life and online, and to encourage people to connect creatively through stories.

Storytelling for Young People The ability to think creatively is key in the development of a youth, as it opens opportunities to explore broader views, to see multiple possibilities and come up with better solutions. Taking a look at our brain function, the explanation for this is rather simple. The neocortex is the part of our brains that solve problems and find other solutions than freeze, fight or flight (the activities that are created in our brain). The neocortex is also the part of the brain in which creativity is stimulated. In other words, creativity makes a youth more resilient. Resilience has changed over time though. In the early days our problem solving skills had to deal with the chaotic wilderness around us, but modern times bring modern problems and, thus, modern solutions. Nowadays, for example, people heavily rely on their

social emotional skills to survive. Working with stories we can train the creative centre that helps develop a youth’s social emotional skills. Storytelling proves itself to be a strong tool to train creativity for two reasons. First, listening to stories triggers imagination. It allows us to explore new non-existing worlds; it encourages people to fill in the gaps, make stuff up, it allows us to dream. In other words, listening to stories encourages creativity. All stories do, great existing fairy tales and folk tales trigger sensorial creativity. The listener fills in scenes with tastes, smells, sounds, feelings, etc.. Personal or autobiographical stories also have a different quality, as they focus on an individual's process of coming into action. Thus, listening to personal stories can be empowering to the listener. This brings us to the second reason why storytelling is a good tool to train creativity: telling a story, the feeling of being heard by peers, leads to the feeling of being empowered. Creating a story supports personal growth for youths, as empathy is an important part of the exchange of stories. Often there is recognition and resonance when listening to a story, which leads to a greater understanding of the other. In short, using creativity in making and sharing stories contributes to the well-being of young people. This is incredibly poignant in the times (and aftermath) of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The personal development of European youths has suffered greatly. In a highpoint of human life, their teens, their growth stagnated gravely due to the lockdown measures countries had enforced to embank the virus. Many lived a monotonous life

with less activities, less experiences, less friends and family, less stories and less fun.

Storytelling tools for Youth Workers The main goal of the Digital Storytelling Toolbox is the stimulation of creativity and enjoyment of making stories. We see this as an urgent matter. In a hyper-media world youths are constantly overloaded with marketing and/or artistic works. Whether it is a tv-commercial for a soft drink or a cell phone provider, an arthouse movie or Hollywood blockbuster, a ten euro t-shirt of a million euro painting or a song in a club; high-end creative products are everywhere these days and it is very understandable to feel uncreative, uninspired and talentless. Of course, none of these have to be true. The WYCS project oﬀers European youth workers a new storytelling methodology that boosts creativity among youths. The exercises are easy, the theory is simple and universal, the build-up of the workshop is clear, the conversations facilitated will bring people closer together through laughter and playfulness. Using the storytelling tools the youth worker will attain new skills that facilitate youths to practice presenting ánd listening. Doing so, the youth worker gives youths the opportunity to have a casual dialogue about diﬀerences and common ground. Without knowing, youths are stimulated towards personal development and social inclusion. The exercises aim to facilitate learning to tell a story, working together and having fun doing so. A major 9

A major side eﬀect is the personal development and the growing conﬁdence of the participants. The facilitator is free to bring personal development more to the foreground in his or her training by adding more in-depth personal development exercises later in the workshop. The Digital Storytelling Toolbox is a fun and interactive method in which storytelling can help activate youths to pursue their dreams. In other words, you can help youths leave the house, overcome obstacles, kill the dragon, save the princess, and become the hero of their journey.

Fiction

truthful. You can choose to tell a true story but can also make up whatever you want because the storyteller is the god of her own world. Which also means you can copy popular ideas! You can copy the plot of your favourite movie. Take your favourite character, give her a diﬀerent name, put her in your school, win her over and ask her out to the school dance. Oh nozombies! So, though non-ﬁction is very interesting, it is only half of the fun of storytelling. Fiction is about making up new weird characters, beautiful locations and unlikely events for the enjoyment of the creator and the listener. Telling personal stories is an essential part of the Digital Storytelling Toolbox because they can be a powerful tool for team building and personal development, but a youth worker should remind youths that when it comes to creating and telling stories no one is married to the truth.

In the WYCS storytelling method we like to pay special attention to ﬁction. Fiction is (parts of) a story that is invented, imagined or 'made up'. This is in contrast to non-ﬁction: the description of 'true events' that 'really happened'.

Digital

When people start storytelling some have a preference for non-fiction, like 'diary tales' or 'journalism'. It’s the art of describing true events in first or third person perspective. We understand this; reality is infinitely inspiring, but can also become a barrier for creativity. Beginners of storytelling might feel the need to be 'accurate' or 'truthful', like a journalist or a lawyer. The implication of non-fiction of course being that there is a truth, that the creator of the story has to tell that truth and that the story can be a wrong version of that truth. But that is not how storytelling works. There is no truth, this is just a story! A storyteller has absolutely no responsibility to be honest or

The following Storytelling Workshop is a methodology designed for digital use, by which is meant online workshops via video calling. After extensive research and practice the WYCS partners have come to the conclusion that even the user-friendliest online tools (like Mural or Wonder.me) can obstruct the true human interaction needed for a great storytelling workshop. Our goal was to design a method that is inclusive for all youths in all circumstances. This means we took into account that not every young person is skilled on the computer or has a computer updated/advanced enough for certain online tools. Besides that, we experienced that the

time youths needed to create a (guest) account and get familiar with the online tool was lost time, leading towards impatience and, sometimes, irritation. Clumsiness of a youth worker in an online works will remind youths of the dread and boringness of the Covid-19 lockdowns and will lead to demotivation. That’s why we chose to keep the Digital Storytelling Toolbox as simple as possible, the only thing needed by the youth worker is ZOOM or Microsoft Teams, and for every participant a pen/pencil and paper at the ready. The workshop exercises are kept short (no longer than 2-3 hours) and fun for high-energy interaction.

GUIDELINES TO THE DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLKIT Below you will ﬁnd a guide on how to use the toolbox to create a great storytelling workshop. These guidelines allow all youth workers to become expert storytelling facilitators. First the guidelines explain the terminology used, then follows the key phases of a workshop session, and then comes the explanation of the goals of the 4 sessions of the Digital Storytelling Workshop. Ideally, the workshop is set-up to be 4 sessions of 2-3 hours for a maximum of 10 youths per session. The four sessions are: 1. Introduction and Team Building 2. Creating a Story in Theory 3. Creating a Scene: Fun and ﬁction 4. Creating Engaging Stories In conclusion we provide a model workshop of the 4 sessions and some Tips and Tricks for every youth worker. This method is not perfect and we invite all youth workers to use their personal skills and experience to make the workshop unique and

ﬁtting for the participants.

Terminology Though we’ve done our best to avoid it, you’ll probably stumble across some speciﬁc terminology in these guidelines. Let us explain the most important and most used terms: Toolbox – a collection of exercises. These will give you the tools to deliver a workshop session. Facilitator – the person/youth worker who delivers the workshop. So that will be you. We chose to use a facilitator instead of trainer/coach, as we believe that you should facilitate the youth in their development. You should encourage them to discover themselves in relation to the other, using the tools provided within this Toolbox. As a general rule, you should avoid being overly directive.

Fiction – (parts of) a story that is invented, imagined or 'made up'. Non-ﬁction – (parts of) a story that has truly happened. Experienced either by the storyteller or someone else. Session – a combination of exercises that contains a logic path going from team building to triggering creativity. The path design depends on the context in which the session is given. Workshop – the total program of all sessions. Exercise – a building block in a workshop that has a beginning and an end and usually covers one kind of action and one aim.

Phases of a workshop session A clear and logical build up is the best recipe for a successful workshop session leading to the results you are aiming for. We distinguish 4 diﬀerent phases in the workshop. Regardless of the time available, all four phases must be present in the design of your workshop, though you can decide to shorten or extend them. The 4 phases are: 1. Team building 2. Triggering creativity 3. Storytelling 4. Closing

Labels of the exercises The exercises are your tools to build a great workshop. We developed a great variety of exercises that can be used in different phases within the workshop to reach different goals. The different goals are: 1. Icebreaking 2. Team building 3. Making contact 4. Energising 5. Triggering creativity 6. Improvisation 7. Playing with fiction 8. Personal development 9. Finding common ground 10. Closing 11. Evaluation In the Toolbox you will see that we labelled each exercise in order to facilitate its use in the workshop in order for you to compose the ideal workshop yourself! To give you some guidance, we describe several aspects (see the scheme below) that can help you build a strong structure in which the exercises you have in mind fit and help you reach the goals you have set. In the following paragraphs all parts of this set-up scheme will be explained step by step.

Be aware that you can never fully plan a workshop beforehand as the dynamics in the group are an important aspect to consider. You can only feel this dynamic as soon as you start the workshop. So keep in mind that you have to consider quite some ﬂexibility, and that you must be prepared to modify the program on the spot. Don’t hesitate to personalise exercises to your own style. And if you see that a speciﬁc exercise works way better when you adjust it or use it in another way, please let us know – we’re always open to improve the tools we’ve developed for you!

THE DIGITAL STORYTELLING WORKSHOP Workshop session 1: Introduction and Team Building The ﬁrst session is about creating the right atmosphere and setting the right expectations. When participants get into an online video meeting, check if everybody's set-up is right. Is the video and audio okay? Is everyone in a place where they can talk freely? If not, the facilitator can suggest the participant moving to a more private location for the session. Being creative and telling stories can be a vulnerable disposition, so it is best the youths feel safe in the physical location. Then the workshop starts! The facilitator has to introduce him- or herself and clearly set the goal of the workshop: everybody is here to have fun, get creative and learn how to tell stories together. Go through the program, the goals of the four workshop

sessions and repeat the appointments and times. Setting a clear frame for the workshop is a simple yet striking way to make the participants feel that they are in good hands and they are all at the beginning of a journey together.

The rest of the ﬁrst session is dedicated to storytelling exercises that are aimed for team building. We must always highlight the importance of team building. When you fail to build a strong team, the rest of your workshop can become nothing short of an agony. Particularly when participants are shy and don't feel that they are capable of creativity or storytelling. For them sharing creative thoughts can be nerve wracking. That’s why we strongly advise to spend suﬃcient time on team building exercises, particularly when you work with groups for which mutual trust is not taken for granted. It may seem that this takes away precious time for

actually working on the stories. But in reality, you’ll be gaining time because working with a strong team signiﬁcantly expedites the ‘creative’ step in story building. The next steps become immediately faster with a group that is mutually trusting. Roughly, we make the following distinction in the team building exercises and activities: • Creating a safe environment • Exercises for team building

Creating a safe environment Creating a safe space is necessary to deliver a good workshop with the outcomes you aim for. You create a safe environment by doing some exercises with the entire group. First and foremost, it’s key to make a series of inner-group agreements in order to build mutual trust. In this sense, three agreements are fundamental: 1. The agreement that all which is said within the walls of the training space will stay there unless permission to share it with someone outside the training space is explicitly and directly requested. 2. The agreement that personal stories belong to whomever shares them. No one is allowed to share a story without explicit permission from the source. This also counts for participants sharing the stories of other participants during the training. Even in that situation he or she must ask for permission. You must also request permission for the stories you will share during the training. 3. Everybody is equal, including you. Some people might have a speciﬁc role, but that does not mean

they are more important than others. The group agrees to respect and obey the responsibilities that come with each role. You might even add some other agreements. You can develop them with the help of the group. It is good to write them down, for example on a sheet or a white board, so that everybody is constantly reminded. On this note, you should remember trust is in the roots of triggering creativity. This means that you should also be willing to share something personal and must be prepared to show some vulnerability in being creative as well.

Exercises for Team Building When a safe environment is created you can continue with building trust in a group. Some exercises directly focus on trust, but exercises that encourage collaboration also serve well to build mutual trust. We stress the importance of preparing this step with dedication. You need to have a well�structured plan that fits the group you will work with and the final objective envisioned for that specific group. It’s highly important to know the exercises very well and to be aware of what you can establish through them. In order to do this successfully, it’s necessary to dedicate sufficient practice to them and constantly monitor their foreseen and unforeseen effects. These exercises will familiarise you, as a facilitator, with the group and its dynamics. They evidence who’s who in the group and surface underlying trust issues. Based on your resulting observations you

can adjust your initial program. For example: when you notice there’s little trust within the group, you could add some more trust games.

Workshop session 2: Creating a Story in Theory The second workshop session is about teaching the basics of storytelling and facilitating the opportunity for the youths to play around creating stories together. So after a quick recap of last session and short icebreaker/team building exercises to get the energy and focus of the group, the facilitator should take 20 minutes (or so) to explain the theory of storytelling.

Storytelling Theory: The Three Pillars of Storytelling In the next paragraphs we will brieﬂy describe the elements of a good story. We start from the three so-called pillars of storytelling. We encourage you to explore this theory yourself as well as listening to stories, reading stories or watching a movie or television series. You will notice that stories are everywhere and the theory of telling a story is used by everyone. All great storytelling consists of, ﬁrst, narrative structure, second, imaginative telling and last contact.

Narrative structure Every story has a structure and often that structure is somehow the same. Simply said, a good story has

a beginning, a middle and an end, plus a number of elements that make the story exciting. We explain this with the use of The Hero with the Thousand Faces, a theory about the structure of a story written about seventy years ago by the American Joseph Campbell. The hero is the main character in a story. In a personal story, it’s usually the teller. In a folktale or fairy tale it is Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood/Leila or Aladdin. Situation A is the beginning situation, the daily life in which the main character has no clue of what’s going on or will happen. Situation B is the ﬁnal situation, in which the hero has got new insights after going through a sequence of events. When we say new insights, you could think of things such as: you have to obey your parents, follow your heart, or it’s good to stay true to yourself, whether you are poor or rich. The call or the trigger is the reason to go on a journey. Often, the main character receives an assignment: In a personal story the trigger can be: one day a friend asked me to pass by to have a chat. The phrase ‘One day’ often marks the beginning of a journey. Helpers and opponents: during the journey the hero encounters all kinds of situations and people. Helpers support the hero on his journey, while opponents create obstacles. This isn’t just about human beings. A big lake that comes across your path when you are escaping from the hands of an evil witch can be quite an opposing force as well. These opposing and helping forces are there to make a story exciting. Trouble

makes stories fun!

Example: Little Red Riding Hood

In short, our working storytelling method is based on the simple narrative of the hero’s journey. It consists out of ﬁve elements that take the following order:

Situation A: Little Red Riding Hood is safe at home with her mother.

• The beginning (Situation A) • The call/trigger • The helpers and the help • The opponents and the setbacks • The arrival (Situation B)

The call: One day Little Red Riding Hood is asked to bring cookies to her ill grandmother by her mother, but is warned to stay on the path. The opponent: A beautiful forest ﬂower next to the path and the big bad wolf. The helper: The Hunter with his gun/axe. Situation B: Little Red Riding Hood back at home, having learned to always obey her mother and stay on the path to stay out of danger. The key concept in the hero’s journey is transformation. Every (good) story is about change, internal and external. It is important, when creating a story, or telling a memorie, to look for change. This can be done by asking questions such as: what have I learned from the event in the memory? What insight have I gained and how has this aﬀected me?

Imaginative telling When someone tells a story, they has to take care that he or she uses a lot of images. We always say: it

is the teller that provides the images, but it is the listener that makes the story based on the images that are provided by the teller. It is as if the listener plays a ﬁlm in his/her head, based on these images. To reach that eﬀect it’s important to use images in telling, by which we mean that it’s important to describe pictures and scenes, by mentioning details. For instance, one could say 'I saw a woman', but one can also say:

his/her heads.

Making contact The previous two pillars really focus on creating a story. The last pillar is more about dealing with presenting it. As soon as a story is well presented, it will gain strength and the listener will be happy to pay attention to it. We consider it important that the teller maintains contact with the listener and his surroundings. You are together in one space and – like we described above – you also make the story together.

You can also stimulate the imagination of the listener by using the ﬁve senses: • Sight • Smell • Taste • Sound • Feeling For instance,

It’s important to train yourself in describing as many images as possible when sharing a story. Simply describe what you see in your imagination as you tell the story. Because when you share a story, the listener sees the movie with images so to say in

That implies that the teller – by being in contact with the listener – should be able to estimate if the story is clear and if the listener is still completely focused etc. The teller should also be able to adjust his story or presentation if he/she feels it’s necessary. If something else happens in the space – a chair falls, it starts to rain – the teller should be able to involve this in his / her story. It brings the story to life and makes it attractive. Everybody has the ability to make contact, but some people will have diﬃculties doing it. For that reason, it is good to practise it. It’s important to also stress that the teller always has to take the listener into account, for example by inserting some pauses in his/her story. A little silence enables the listener to digest the information he / she just heard. The moment the teller doesn’t allow him/herself any rest the listener also listener also gets no rest, often resulting in that the listener

also gets no rest, often resulting in that the listener simply stops listening... deﬁnitely not the eﬀect you wish to achieve. A more experienced participant can work with his or her voice as well. By adding variation in pitch,her voice as well. By adding variation in pitch, speed or volume he or she will be able to captivate the listener even better.

Workshop session 3: Creating a Scene: Fun and Fiction The third storytelling session is about learning to enjoy creating a story. Using the safe atmosphere from session 1 and the basics of the storytelling theory from session 2, here is where the fun comes in! In this session the focus is not on creating an entire, whole story, but on creating a single scene and having as much fun as possible making up a character, a location and a plot. So, after some quick icebreaker/team building exercises the facilitator should get started with opening the youth up to creative thoughts.

Triggering Creativity Many people are not aware of their creative talents and when you ask someone to think creatively all of a sudden, he/she can even block. As we need creative thinking to get out of the box and explore storytelling, you need to trigger creativity before you let them go and create stories and scenes on their own. As some people might be slightly afraid or intimidated by creativity (as opposed to others who love to be creative and to show their creative selves), it is advis18

able not to present the exercises in terms of ‘creativity triggering’. Present them as playful and sometimes fun exercises, letting participants discover for themselves that being creative and thinking creatively is far easier than they thought. We included diﬀerent levels of exercises to trigger creativity. Depending on the group, we advise building up the level of creative thinking in two or three consecutive steps, using two or three exercises. With more advanced or outgoing groups, you can probably start immediately with improvisation and playing with ﬁction exercises. With less advanced groups and participants who are not familiar with each other, we advise to start with just describing, easing participants into the habit of speaking up, without immediately sharing personal thoughts or emotions. This helps create the safe space you need to start sharing ideas and discovering common ground.

Fiction As described in the introduction of this handbook, the WYCS Digital Storytelling Workshop pays special attention to fiction, (parts of) a story that is invented or 'made up', in contrast to non� fiction, the description of 'true events' that 'really happened'. This does not mean the facilitator should correct participants that have the tendency to resort to non-fiction and personal stories. The emphasis on fiction should not be explicitly expressed by the facilitator, this will cause a barrier for the creativity of the youths. If someone chooses to tell personal stories, simply

remind him or her that when it comes to storytelling they are not married to the truth. They can make up details, characters, locations, plot, twists, etcetera, for the enjoyment of themselves and the listeners. Or, also, just because it feels true to, for instance, say goodbye to a loved one when it rains or at sunset, or that at the party everybody wore grey outﬁts, but she wore a red dress. Most times, a little bit of ﬁction can keep a true story moving.

Disclaimers For the participants it can be very helpful to be reminded that during these workshop sessions it is allowed to use clichés, copy/"borrow"/steal creativity ideas from books/songs/movies/series or reality. All big creatives copy ideas, to name a few: 1. William Shakespeare "borrowed" the story of 'Romeo and Juliet' from poet Arthur Brooke. 2. George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, copied monsters from the fantasy novel 'Dune' by Frank Herbert. 3. Walt Disney built his career on the stories of others, like the Brothers Grimm. 4. Disney’s 'The Lion King' is based on Shakespeare’s play 'Hamlet’. The preconception that every creative idea has to be a unique one will lead youths to a creative block. The message of this session is that there is no shame in "borrowing" creative ideas, as long as you don’t intend to copy the story. Youths can use clichés and popular creative ideas to help them tell their own stories. This Storytelling Workshop is there to help youths experiment with whatever keeps them busy.

In short, copying your idols is the best way to ﬁnd your own story. Another disclaimer that can be mentioned during this workshop session is something we experienced during our testing sessions. Having fun while creating stories together will most probably lead to a lot of laughter. In group situations humour is a great way to relieve tension and create a community. Some participants thought they might have a talent for making other people laugh. This can create an atmosphere where it feels that people should joke, that humour is dominant. When this happens the facilitator has to remind the group that not all stories have to be funny. This is important because some participants do not consider themselves funny or ﬁnd it too exciting to make a joke in a group of people they don’t know. To keep the workshop inclusive for all participants the facilitator can remind everybody that not all stories are comedic, some of the best stories are romantic, thrilling, absurd, suspenseful, beautiful or packed with action. All of these genres have their own tension. For instance descriptions of a character can stimulate feelings of sexual tension, horror or both! These are all wonderful elements of storytelling to experiment with. 'What a sexy zombie!’

Workshop session 4: Creating Engaging Stories The ﬁnal storytelling session is about facilitating the participants to create a powerful and engaging story. The sessions before were about having a lot 19

team building and creating a safe environment, teaching the participants the three pillars of storytelling (narrative structure, imaginative telling and making contact) and how to have the most fun with creating fictional scenes. These sessions were mostly dependent on the improvisational skills of the participants. But sometimes it takes a while to figure out what story you want to tell. A creative idea, like a nice stew or soup, takes time simmering in the depths of your conscience. There are several possibilities for the facilitator to build this session. The ultimate goal is for each participant to create a story of five minutes maximum. To help participants create this story the facilitator gives two tools, two exercises: the Web of Association and The Three of Life. Both exercises will be explained briefly below (full description in the Toolbox), but it is important to mention in what ways the last session can be facilitated. Ideally, all participants are motivated during all sessions. Then the facilitator has to judge if the youths are able to do preparations for the fourth session, ergo to do homework. In the case they are asked to do the Web of Association and the Three of Life individually and prepare a five minute story which they will tell in the final session. These preparations will take about 1-2 hours per story and are announced at the end of the third session. The final online session then will open with a brief check-in and ice breaker. Then the participants will be divided into duo’s and ask trivial questions about each

other's stories (see exercise Trivial Questions in Toolbox). After everybody comes back to the group and each participant has five minutes to tell their story, the facilitator and the youths can provide positive and constructive feedback. If the participants are not entirely motivated, or there is another reason for the facilitator to believe that the group isn’t able to properly prepare between two last sessions, it is advisable to use the final session to take time to do the Three of Life. In this case, there will be no explicit storytelling at the end of the workshop but that will be fine as the Three of Life is a good exercise to end with.

The Tree of Life Each participant works on his or her own in this exercise. Ask them to take pen and paper. Invite participants to draw a tree – the tree functions as a metaphor for the life story of the hero of their story, going through the past, the present and the future. Each tree should include the following elements: The roots, they represent the roots of one’s life, i.e. the (important) people, the places, the traditions etc. The ground, which represents the current life, the daily occupations etc. The trunk represents the values, the skills, the qualities, the characteristics etc. The branches are the hopes, the dreams, the wishes. The leaves are the people that helped the person to become how he or she is today. The fruits represent the legacy and the gifts some-

one leaves behind.

The Web Association

It is again up to the facilitator to decide the balance of creativity and social empowerment.

Participants work individually (as homework) or in duo’s in this exercise (in session). They use pen and paper. The association web is an exercise that aims to provide a visualisation of a creative brainstorm. All these associations that can help a character/problem/location/theme get more rich with sub-themes and other thoughts.

Announcing the exercises, the facilitator can propose to make a Tree of Life for: 1. A fictional hero, a character created by their imagination and/or "borrowed" biographical elements of their favourite stories. 2. A hero based on reality, a character based on either the participant him- or herself or a person they know. A participant can use whatever real-life elements they wish and add any fictional elements they want. 3. The person themselves, the Tree of Life represents the life of the participant him- or herself. Based upon this tree, the facilitator can invite the participants to create a five minute story using narrative structure as explained in the storytelling theory. Creating a fictional story will be the most light and fun, creating a personal story can be more intense but will definitely lead to introspection and personal development as the presenting of the created story represents the performance of their chosen identity. Creating a hero based on reality is a good middle way that is both light and fun but also provides introspection. Again, it is up for the facilitator to decide how to use the Three of Life. To help to create a story from the Tree of life, youths can use the next exercise.

The process starts by picking a subject. Write this in the middle of the paper, for instance 'Graduation'. Now all around this subject write all initial associations, like 'exams', 'stress', 'ceremony', ’studying'. Now take one of these and start associating around this subject, for instance take ’stress' and we can write down 'sleepless nights', 'headache', 'stomachache', 'biting nails' etc. The Association Web is a great tool to help someone who is stuck in creating a story and help have new creative ideas. Or it helps starting a story as a participant can start with an event or character trade from the Tree of Life in the middle of the web that they feel is the strongest inspiration for their story. The aim is to ﬁt the Tree of Life, aided by the Association Web, into a narrative structure as seen in session 2. Then to create scenes (an accumulation of several characters in a location with a problem) as in session 3. Again, it is up to the facilitator to determine the balance between the ﬁctional world and their own experienced life. Participants can create a story for a made-up hero based upon the word they feel the strongest with. But the facilitator can also 21

ask them to base it more on their own memories/life and to retell an experience, but then a (little bit) more ﬁctionalized. What if suddenly a knight had come to your family dinner?

Closing and Evaluation Whether the final session was a session of sharing engaging stories or creating individual Trees of Life, the result is that all participants have learned a lot about having fun creating and telling stories in the Digital Storytelling Workshop. What exactly they have learned and any other feedback of the whole workshop is essential information for every motivated facilitator and can help you grow as a youth worker. Please take the last fifteen minutes of the final session and ask all youths to tell 1) what they have learned 2) what they thought was the most fun exercise 3) what they thought was least fun exercise and 4) how they can use what they have learned in the future. You can also do this evaluation via an online-questionnaire (like a Google Form), which is definitely recommendable as it gives you a written account of the feedback. Still it is a must to also do this evaluation of the entire workshop in the final session as it is pedagogically important to remember the lessons and socially important to close the group sessions chapter together. Finally, finish with a check-out.

MODEL DIGITAL STORYTELLING WORKSHOP Session 1: Introduction and Teambuilding (2-3 hours)

Session 2: Creating a Story in Theory (2-3 hours)

1. Check-in

2. The Name-Game 3. Scars

2. Take Something 3. Your Adventure

4. Boundaries of the workshop 5. Introduction to the Digital Storytelling Workshop

4. Storytelling Theory: The Three Pillars of Storytelling

6. Press and Tell 7. Picture Your Memory

5. You are the Hero I 6. You are the Hero II

8. Check-out

7. Check-out

Session 3: Creating a Scene: Fun and ﬁction (2-3 hours)

Session 4: Creating Engaging Stories (2-3 hours)

1. Check-in 2. Worst Case Scenario

3. Just a Normal Day 4. Explanation about Fun, Fiction and “borrowing”

3. Tree of Life 4. Web of Associations

5. The Character 6. The Location

5. Sharing stories 6. Evaluation

7. Check-out

TIPS & TRICKS We would like to share some insights we got from previous workshops and other facilitating experiences. To some of you this might be common knowledge, but for others it might be useful to read this through before starting a workshop.

Get out of your comfort zone

comfort zone yourself. If you ask participants to show vulnerability, you must be willing and able to be vulnerable yourself. If you do not open up yourself, you may expect that your participants don’t open up either. The same counts for dealing with the exercises. If you require participants to act silly – like in team building exercises – don’t hesitate to join and act silly yourself as well. It will contribute to the group spirit

You will quickly notice that telling a personal story and sharing it with peers is somewhat out of the

and to the equality within the group.

comfort zone of many participants. Don’t be afraid of

Silliness is a great tool to use, particularly in the ﬁrst

that, getting out of your comfort zone (or if you want: stretching your comfort zone) has many beneﬁcial eﬀects. People that dare to leave their comfort zone

phases of a workshop. Acting silly together breaks

are able to meet new people, try new things and go beyond. Their resilience is signiﬁcantly higher, and that might be one of the eﬀects you want to cause with the workshop.

down boundaries between the participants. If you saw others acting silly, it makes it easier to share stories in a subsequent stage of the workshop, because you laughed together, and transcended your comfort zones collectively. Sometimes you might feel awkward asking your

You must, however, be prepared to come out of your

participants to act silly, particularly when you work

with more mature groups. Make sure you remember that everyone carries a child within – a child that wants to play. So, we highly advise you to leave your comfort zone and engage in playful exercises. You’ll be surprised to see how everybody, regardless of his or her age, loves acting silly once in a while.

Handling emotions Storytelling projects can evoke strong emotions. Everybody who has ever worked with storytelling has experienced this. Sometimes you are confronted with deep and delicate problems of participants. It can even happen that they’re telling their story for the ﬁrst time. The safe environment you have created can sometimes allow participants to share things that they wouldn’t have shared in other circumstances. This can happen directly or hidden within a story. However, you should always be aware of the fact that you are (most of the time) not a therapist and in some cases should advise the participant to refer to an expert. It happens (too often) that storytellers, storytelling facilitators and theatre trainers try to solve heavy problems themselves, which is not beneﬁcial for them or the person needing help.

Guaranteeing equality As stated previously, equality is a very important issue when delivering a workshop that seeks to bridge the gap between two groups from diﬀerent – and sometimes conﬂicting – backgrounds. In every aspect of the workshop you have to be careful not to bias too much to one side and to always keep the common ground and interest in mind. 24

When you work with two groups that do not speak the same native language, for example, consider using a third common language instead of choosing one of the two main languages. This avoids favouring one group over the other one (namely working in the own, native language). Your background can also play a key role. If you have the same background as one of the groups, this might lead to the feeling of inequality. Even if you treat all participants equally, the feeling might be that you favour the ones with whom you share a background. Avoid this by, for example, working with two facilitators, representing both backgrounds or inviting a ‘neutral’ facilitator.

Working with Different Cultures Processes in which each person can feel valued in the context of their own culture, reaffirms and strengthens their sense of identity. Participants can then move at ease within their new cultural surroundings feeling less identity threats. The WYCS project focuses on creating empathy and by that mutual understanding amongst youth with different backgrounds in (potential) conflict areas. In many cases you will deal with youth from different cultural backgrounds. In that case it’s good to be aware of some basic notions of intercultural interaction, also applicable to the previous tips & tricks on equality. Therefore, workshops organized in the framework of WYCS should always intend to promote cohesion, but you should consider the individual andc ollective diversity dynamics without causing marginalization or social outcast.

The respect for individuality and diversity represents a main principle that intercultural learning bears within itself. Intercultural education involves interpersonal interaction between members from different cultures. Intercultural work doesn’t simply mean learning about cultural differences. Rather, it means engaging with them so as to create new narratives. For that, a workshop needs to value not only each culture, but truly and fully embrace diversity in itself as an overarching concept. Valuing diversity means understanding the complexity of cultural groups and power relations within, using this knowledge in the set-up of a workshop dealing with groups from different cultural backgrounds. For example, this means that you should also be aware of your own set of cultural characteristics, avoiding them to interfere in the facilitator-group dynamics. However, you cannot erase these characteristics from yourself. It is often best to simply be transparent about it and simply fully embrace other cultures, opinions and traditions with respect and enthusiasm.

Working with groups The advantage of working with groups is that you already have the appreciative and critical listeners in the same space (peer to peer learning). A good way to use the potential of this fact is to ask the participants to work together in smaller groups in order to support each other in working on assignments. This inﬂuences the dynamics of a project in a positive way as participants can check immediately if ideas work, discuss issues and test ways of putting things forward.

Besides, showing your insecurities is far easier in a small group than in front of larger audiences, helping people work on their self-confidence. Though different facilitators will think differently about the ideal size of a group, the general consensus is that the true power of using storytelling to get people together benefits from small work groups. The attention required from participants and the concentration required from facilitators means that a group of six to twelve people is ideal. With less participants it is difficult to have the optimal group dynamic and interaction, while larger groups tend to mean you lose the ability to pay enough attention to all participants.

Dealing with disabilities It might happen that you will have disabled participants in your group, either physically or mentally. As we stated before, it’s very important to guarantee full equality in the group, which of course extends to disabled participants. Dealing with physical disabilities: when you decide on the exercises you’d like to use, take into account that some of your participants will not be able to join overly physical exercises. In such a case, pick exercises with less movement or adjust exercises slightly to grant everybody equal access to the workshop. Most of the exercises in the Toolbox can be done by participants with a disability without a problem. Dealing with mentally disabled: this will be a greater challenge, particularly if the level of the participants in the group varies signiﬁcantly. In that case, we 25

advise you to pick exercises that can be scaled to suit diﬀerent levels. Always bear in mind: never allow a situation to unravel in which a disabled participant cannot join and has to sit aside. This project is about inclusion for all!

Recruitment When you are not working with an established group of youth, recruitment might be a challenge. First of all, youth is not always immediately enthusiastic to share stories. Storytelling might be considered old-fashioned or boring at first. However, our experience tells us that most youth really enjoy such a workshop a lot in the end. They only need some support to cross the threshold. A trick to convince participants to join, is to stress the benefits they can have when being able to express themselves in a strong way and to be able to tell their story properly. This contributes in a positive way to job search activities or in building a social network. And be aware that this is not even a lie: we noticed that youth really benefited from storytelling workshops in presenting themselves. Another challenge might be the reluctance to join a workshop with youth from ‘the other side’. Why would someone invest in meeting others that don’t belong to their own group?

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 1)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 2)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 3)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 4)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 5)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 6)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 7)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 8)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 9)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 10)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 11)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 12)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 13)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 14)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 15)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 16)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 17)

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOOLBOX (Ex. 18)

DIGITAL CREATIVE TEXT WRITING

WHAT LOESJE IS ALL ABOUT...

Loesje is a writers’ collective, an international non-governmental organization, a poster activist group, a creative network, a contagious idea - many titles, call it what you want. The young Dutch girl Loesje has given her name to this growing group of

world constructors and dreamers, people who are helping her to conquer the world with creativity and posters. Black texts on white paper, inspiring observations on the world, something humorous that makes you think, reflect and react, an exchange of opinions in the public space. Through Loesje, people get the chance to express themselves, and become inspired to act and react to the world around them. Writing texts together is one way to express opinions and to exchange ideas. Loesje is the voice on the posters and therefore you’ll find her signature under each text. Loesje believes in the power of people and supports self-initiative, creativity, independence, freedom, acceptance and peace. She is fighting in her own creative way for freedom of speech and other human rights. Loesje is open to anyone with humanistic values and is politically and religiously indepent often try to highlight something from a different perspective. Most texts are open for many interpre46

tations, which reflect reality as it is: complex and many-layered. Loesje is not trying to tell people what to think or do, but hopes to inspire people to make up their own mind about things. As Loesje is a person, she has values that shape her opinion and what she says. While being open to different ideas, these core values determine what she may or may not say, and can be a good guide for new groups on whether the message of a text fits the ideas of Loesje. These values are: Showing solidarity, being Anti-authoritarian, being Sexually free, Showing Initiative, being Decisive, being A-religious and being Independent.

Solidarity INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY IS NOT A DAY TO TRUELY CELEBRATE UNTIL ALL OUR FIGHTS ARE WON

Anti-Authoritarian

LET THEM SILENCE THEIR EGOS NOT YOUR VOICE

Being Decisive

ACTIVISM THEY SAID WE COULDN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WE DO IT ANYWAYS

Sexually Free

ARE YOU A GENDER OR AGENDER

Showing Initiative

IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT EXPLOITATION AND THEN MAKE IT

A-Religious

Being Independent

�� Equality

MY FAVOURITE PART OF MATHS IS THE EQUALITY SYMBOL

��

LOESJE CREATIVE TEXT-WRITING WORKSHOPS Generally, Loesje workshops are made by a group of people, all meeting in person, in a comfortable place with a lot of space for people to sit together and write. However, when much of school and work life was moved online due to the Corona pandemic, the Loesje workshops were also adapted to take place online. A Loesje creative text writing session is normally done by using pen and paper, so finding a tool to simulate that process is one of the first things to figure out. We recommend using “Etherpad”, which is a free web application that allows multiple users to work on a text document simultaneously. Using Etherpad, combined with a video conference tool such as Zoom, has been the way for the Loesje Berlin team to do online creative text writing. Give yourself and your participants time to get acquainted with the tools and apps, to make the writing experience as smooth as possible.

participants will write on the Etherpad. Make sure that these links are shared with the participants before the agreed time and date of your online creative text writing session.

2. The Beginning When doing the online creative text writing session, make sure to give yourself some extra time for any technical difficulties that arise, while the participants connect (especially if it is the first time facilitating the workshop). You can always encourage the participants to enter the Etherpad link and Zoom call, 10-15 minutes before the designated meeting time. When the participants enter the Etherpad, instruct each person to write their name on the top right hand corner, by clicking on the icon with figures of people.

1. Preparation After setting a time and date for when your group will meet online, you can create a writing pad here: https://etherpad.servus.at/. You can auto generate a new pad name or name the pad yourself. Once the writing pad is generated, you can share the link with all your participants. Along with the etherpad link, you will need to share a link to the video meeting. We usually use “Zoom” to do our video calls but you are free to use the video call platform that best works for you. Through the video call, you as a facilitator will have an easier time giving instructions to what your

Once all participants are connected, you can begin the workshop by doing a quick round of name sharing and introducing yourself. You can continue by explaining what Loesje is and the outcomes of the workshop: to write text proposals of which some will become Loesje posters. Explain what will happen during the workshop and make sure to clear up any 49

doubts or questions from the participants. If you know there are people new to Loesje or who haven’t participated in a Loesje workshop before, introduce a bit about Loesje’s way of writing texts. All posters are created through topics that the participants bring to the table and relate to. The posters present a positive way of thinking about the world and aim to change disappointment into initiative and action. You and the participants can write about anything and “there are no rules” when it comes to writing, for the warm-up games and writing about the subjects the participants select.

3. Warm-Up Activities Examples of warm-up activities and games: There are many variations to the games you can play to get the creativity ﬂowing with your participants. Remind the participants that they can all be creative, even if they do not believe it. Here are a couple ways to get started.select.

A Story The goal of this game is to make up a story with a group of words, having the participants associating to each other's input. Like previously mentioned, these activities are usually made with pen and paper. Each person would have a piece of paper, which they would write on and pass to the person next to them. Since it is not physically possible to pass a piece of paper through the computer screen, you can start by numbering rows on the Etherpad matching the amount of 50

participants. In an online setting an ideal number of participants is between 6-8 people. You as a workshop leader are taking part in all the steps, together with the participants. Step 1: Everyone gets a number (which will be imagined as the paper) on which they write the first word that comes to their minds, along with a “comma”. Then, they move down to the next number where each person now writes another word next to the word already on the line. This second word should be a free association to the first one. Everyone moves down to the next line. The last number will go up to #1. The participants continue going down the numbered lines, writing down one word at a time, always associating on the last one on the numbered line, until each participant has returned to the number they started on. Then, every person underlines 3 words from their numbered line - the three words they like best or find most interesting - and they go down to the next number. Step 2: Now you ask them to write down the name of a famous person, and to again go down to the next number, where they should write down the name of a kitchen tool / household item, and repeat the process of moving to the next number. Here they write the name of a place or location (Paris, beach, the cupboard under the stairs). As they move down to the next numbered line each participant writes a problem, big or small. Step 3: Everybody gets the task to write a story involving: - the 3 words that have been underlined,

- the famous person, - who uses the kitchen tool, - in the chosen place/location, - to solve the problem. The participants can write on their own devices and copy the result into the Etherpad, or write directly on the Etherpad. You might need to monitor the time here, asking the participants if they need more time, since some participants will ﬁnish before the others. Voilá! Hopefully both you and the participants had fun and tickled your imagination. Step 4: After the group has ﬁnished writing, read out (some of) the stories. Always ask for volunteers and if no one wants to start, do it yourself.

3.1. Variations on the Story Newspaper Article You can follow the same instructions as above, and instruct participants to write a newspaper article with the collected words.

A Postcard For the postcard variation you can follow the instructions above for the story, adding an extra step of adding a second famous person. In this scenario one famous person writes a postcard to the second famous person, using the 3 underlined words, including the place, and using the tool/object to solve the problem. A beneﬁt of the postcard format is

that it should be short, which can be practical if you have limited time.

Hulkie-kulkie or “My grandma always says…” Similar to the first writing game, you can start by numbering rows on the Etherpad with the amount of participants. In this game the participants begin to play with techniques that Loesje uses in her writing. You can explain the techniques as you go through the activity. Begin by choosing a topic with the whole group. Once a topic has been collectively chosen, have every participant write a statement about it, which starts with the phrase, “My grandma always says/said…”. When everyone has finished writing their phrase, everyone can move down to the next line, and will work the statement that is on that line. Now people will use this phrase and turn it around. Meaning they can say things in a different or the opposite way. For example, they can switch the subject and object in the sentence or turn the context around, small becomes big, positive becomes negative. When all participants have finished, they can move down to the next line. This time the participants will work with the following statement and they will turn it into a question. When finished they can move down to the next line. With the next task, they will turn the question into an exaggeration. The statement no longer has to be a question. What is important is to make the subject and what it implies, as big as possible. A small scrape or bruise becomes an amputated arm or leg, a gust of wind becomes an intense tornado. When all participants have finished writing their last sentence, every person can take a 51

turn in reading all four statements written, starting from the original statement. Make sure the participants read slowly to see how the statements changed as a diﬀerent technique was applied.

3.2. Techniques used by Loesje Association Think of and ﬁnd as many words and ideas as possible that relate to the subject or make a chain of associations. What kind of feelings are provoked through these associations of the topic?

Contradiction Look for a contradiction or what is opposite of the subject. At times this can prove a strong image.

Comparison Compare the (opinion of a) topic or something that is new to you (and others) to something that is well-known. That can help with clarifying a meaning or consequence of a topic.

Exaggeration Make the topic or subject and what things it implies, bigger. For example a puddle becomes a lake, a drizzle becomes a thunderstorm with hurricanes.

Stimulation/Suggestion Motivate others to take action. Allow them to see things in a diﬀerent way, rather than telling them what to do. Make people read things in a diﬀerent way and show them how rewarding doing things in an unusual way can be.

Turnaround Swapping the subject and object in a sentence or switching the context can sometimes facilitate a new perspective. Make strong aspects into weak ones and vice versa.

Question By asking a question people have a chance to reassess or think about a topic they could have taken for granted.applied.

4. Collect Topics/Subjects and Writing Now that you have made some warm-up games together with your participants, you can move on to the second part of the online creative text writing workshop. In between the warm-up and actual writing, it can be a good moment to take 10-15 minutes for a toilet break, stretching, coﬀee / tea before you move on to the next part. When all participants are back, begin by explaining the next part of the session. In this process, you will write phrases and texts. They can write whatever comes to their minds, it does not need to be their own opinion. If they see other’s opinions that they do not agree with, that is ﬁne, they are encouraged to write something else in addition. It is important to emphasize that at this stage it is still not necessary to write a “Loesje poster”, because the aim of this part of the writing is to share, exchange, and associate to each other’s ideas. Work on expressing yourself and encourage the group to do the same. If you have new participants that are not familiar with Loesje, this would be a good moment to provide who Loesje is and the

values she upholds. By presenting Loesje, the participants will have a better idea of how texts can be written. Move onto collecting and discussing topics that people have on their minds, are curious about, or simply just a topic they like. As you discuss the topics people bring up, make sure they are written down on the Etherpad.

It will be easier to write on the topics afterwards, if they are more speciﬁc than broad. If someone suggests writing about “racism” you can suggest that they write down an aspect of racism that they are extra curious to write about today, for instance “racist incidents in public transport”. Each participant should ideally propose at least one topic, and from this you create a list of topics. You might need to moderate the discussion, since on one hand it is important that all participants understand what is meant by each topic, but on the other hand, you want the discussion to take place during the writing on the Etherpad, and not spoken before.

age all to write associations and phrases for each topic. They can each start on a topic which they proposed, and then move on to the other topics. The idea is that the participants feel inspired to start thinking and writing as if they were Loesje. Any ideas are allowed. It is a collective process, so everyone can play oﬀ of each other's ideas. There is no need to cross out anything someone else has written. Simply just respond to other people’s texts by writing below them. Take time to write for each collected topic, and make sure that everyone has a chance to do the same. When you think people are done writing or feel tired, you can move onto the ﬁnal part of the online workshop.

After 10-15 minutes of collecting topics, you encour53

5. Voting, Selecting Texts & Final Editing In this ﬁnal step, have the whole group look at all of the written texts and select their favorite ones by adding a “+”. They can choose more than one text on each subject, including their own texts. In the end you’ll recognise the most popular texts by the number of “+” behind each text. To bring the workshop to a close, read out loud the texts with the most “+”. Explain that the proposals that have been selected the most will be turned into a list. This list will be shared with a Final Editing group, which will discuss each text and will take the ﬁnal decision on which texts will become part of a new Loesje poster series. Make sure to reach out to Loesje International or your closest Loesje group for support on the Final Editing process and the layout after you and your group have created texts. The Final Editing needs to be made by a Loesje group, who knows Loesje’s identity. Not every text is suitable to become a Loesje poster.

6. Ending the Workshop As a way of ending the workshop, thank the group for joining and ask for feedback from your participants. Find out how they feel after the workshop: was it a process they enjoyed? Were they able to follow and clearly understand the steps of the workshop? Would they join another online creative text writing session? In case it was an open invite, and you do not have the contact details of all the participants, collect the details of those who would like to be invited again. We wish you luck with conducting your own Loesje creative text writing session!

LOESJE FINAL EDITING We will now go through the Final editing process. At this stage of the process it is important to keep in mind that this is a collective process that requires the perspective and input of every participant. There is no “good or bad” text. We only have texts which “work or don’t work”. • From all the circled texts, a list will be created, divided by the topics. • In a second step, you shorten the list by selecting the strongest and most ﬁtting to the characteristics of Loesje and her values. • Now you discuss and work with the texts from the short list. Is the text good enough how it is? Can we shorten it, or make it more clear by exchanging any word? Does it need a heading/title to be understood? Now we will share with you some “points to think about” that will guide you to select Loesje posters.

Loesje Posters... • are innovative - She doesn’t want to repeat or say things that have already been said before or are common slogans or phrases. • have a positive view on life and gives things a positive twist - She wants the reader to feel empowered and motivated by the text. • are progressive (not just describing) - She wants readers to take initiative and have a plan of action, to mobilize. E.g. “War is bad” is a statement

• that we can all read and agree with, but there is no initiative or proposal for understanding why war is bad or action for change. Hence it is not suitable as a Loesje poster. • are inspiring: makes people think, act, smile etc. • there is no judgment by her statements. She criticizes without judging or being moralistic. So if you feel a “ﬁnger of judgment”, it is more than likely that the text does not work as a Loesje poster. • are short and to the point - Keep in mind that posters are intended to be in public spaces, and people should be able to read and understand quickly what they read on the poster. • can be easily read in diﬀerent ways (but if one of those ways gives the wrong impression, it might be better to leave it out or rephrase it, especially in a diverse group of people with diverse backgrounds). • Do not encourage violence or aggressive notions. If Loesje can’t say it, can another family member say it?

Loesje has a Family Sometimes you end up with great texts which just don’t seem to ﬁt Loesje’s personality. Therefore you ﬁnd Loesje’s relatives on some of the posters. In her diary [from 1987], Loesje describes her family. The kid brother is the most frequently used so far. Use 55

the family members if you want to, but don’t use them too often: the organization is called Loesje, not Loesje’s family. The rule of thumb is: only one relative per series.

The Kid Brother He’s a real adolescent. His opinions can be rather extreme and he explores the world in a provoking way. He is slightly selﬁsh and pretends to be very tough, but he can also be rather pathetic and terribly annoying. Sometimes his views match his big sister’s and sometimes he says things that she’d never say. Every girl who has a kid brother now his kind: sometimes he’s great fun, but other times you just want to kill him. He can have great ideas and is good at twisting words, but he can also be very negative, sarcastic and irritating.

Cousin Carl Carl has succeeded in staying unemployed with the remark “unmanageable” from the unemployment agency for the last ten years. He lives on the dole. Every week he writes a job application to the King of the Netherlands since he’s expected to apply for a job weekly, and in the time that remains he enjoys life. He has many ideas and ideals, but he just doesn’t have the energy and the enthusiasm that Loesje has to do something with it.

Aunt Rita She invented the word “comfy”. She loves tea with biscuits, hot chocolate and Wheel of Fortune. She enjoys her karaoke nights in the local pub at which she is occasionally found dancing on the bar at the end of the evening. She also organizes bingo 56

evenings in the community centre and knows everybody in her neighbourhood as well as all the local gossip. She is concerned about the world in a bit of a naïve and maybe slightly superﬁcial way. She reﬂects social problems on herself and sometimes she gets confused, but she’s always open for new things, especially on a spiritual level.

Grandpa He is a walking history book. He thinks pragmatically, has a lot of life experience and nobody can fool him. He’s got a good insight into society and likes his granddaughter. He’s an old leftist who still celebrates the 1st of May.

Grandma She lives half of the time abroad, does things nobody has ever heard of and lives a remarkable life. She’s an old rebel in her eighties and, as she puts it, ‘in the prime of her life’. Beautiful tanned men fall for her. Wherever she goes, she meets the most interesting and bizarre people. She’s critical about new things such as genetic manipulation, battery-powered toys and brown-bread-that-looks-like-white, but she tries to keep an open mind. She’s probably the ﬁrst elderly person who hacked the ﬁles of the secret service through the internet.

Mother Mothers want their children to become happy, but they also want them to have a ‘good job’ and ‘the right kind of friends’. However, a parent’s idea of ‘good’ and ‘right’ doesn’t always resemble the child’s views. Loesje’s mother is into good family conversations and used to fuss a lot, but she has become freer now

that Loesje and her kid brother are not that little anymore. She has recently started learning Italian and has gone off on holiday on her own, leaving Loesje’s dad to take care of the house. She found her first hot flushes very exciting.

Father He is a real father. He ﬁnds Loesje’s ideas great but he doesn’t really understand all of them. He’s a bit afraid of what the neighbours and his colleagues will say. In his youth he goofed up a lot but he tries to keep it a secret from his children because he’s afraid of being a bad example. He’s somebody who often says “Could you be quieter?” or “Is that really necessary?” and who can be found waiting outside the shops while his wife is buying clothes. And probably he always pays too many taxes because he can’t be bothered to sort out all the exemptions. He has a model railway in the attic.

Uncle Henry Henry is a bit of a cynic who loves working on his allotment. He sticks to old habits: porridge for breakfast at 7.30, each day, every day; one biscuit with his tea at 11; at 8 pm a cup of coﬀee while watching the news and at 10 pm it’s time for bed, because the next day porridge will be served at 7.30 again. With Aunt Rita, his wife, he’s living a quite happy life. She is the one who tries out most new things, even though from time to time he can do surprising things as well (such as taking up shamanistic dancing). He’s a bit bourgeois, but he still can be surprisingly progressive and modern at times.

Lay-outing the Texts The main idea when lay-outing a Loesje poster is “keep it simple”. In the flood of colourful ads, black text on white paper with a short message stands out. Before you start with Loesje posters, you can play a bit with other texts to see how different layouts look. Choose one text (e.g. from a newspaper), write it down in capitals several times, cut out every word and manually layout the text in different ways on the page. Now that you have several versions in front of you, try to see which one captures the eye. You can ask other people to give their opinions too so you have a wider and more objective view. Here are also some rules and tips that might come in handy when lay-outing Loesje posters: • It is better to divide long texts into paragraphs. • In each text choose the same line spacing between the units. • The text must remain readable! • If the text has a title (e.g. dentists / the best cure is your smile) you put one line space between the title and the rest of the text. 57

• If the text is in one sentence (e.g. the world is more beautiful with you), you don’t have to do the graphic separation and you can center it. • Use the contact info (www.loesje.org, loesje@loesje.org, or the address of your local group) to emphasize the message (e. g. with the text show me the borders / and I’ll show you how to cross them put the whole info text in one horizontal line and put it between two parts of the text – we mark it with /). • There is also a special font and ﬁxed sizes for the texts, contact the international oﬃce for this info. • And pay attention to spelling mistakes. Always let somebody else have a look at your posters.

REMEMBER, JUST BE CREATIVE!

ABOUT THE PARTNERS INFO FRONT - PRILEP / NORTH MACEDONIA „Info front – Prilep“ is a youth NGO from Prilep, North Macedonia, that provides information to the young people regarding the Erasmus+ programme, stimulates creativity, creative activism, youth mobility, nonformal education, cultural exchanges and information distribution. It’s active in the Erasmus+ Programme (previously Youth in Action), since 2012. The projects they executed, theywork on right now and they prepare for the near future are local and international, in the fields of European awareness, human rights, inclusion, digital tools and methodology, entrepreneurship, self-promotion, art and culture, creative writing, and gender equality. Info front - Prilep has facilitated non-formal education workshops on digital tools, graphic design and entrepreneurship for high-school students since 2012. In the field of media, we are the publisher of the free youth magazine MYG. // https://issuu.com/infofront Formed in 2011, Info front- Prilep acts as a Macedonian branch of Loesje International (an international activist organisation standing for human rights and freedom of speech) // www.loesje.org Info front – Prilep is active in the field of volunteering and has Sending, Coordinating and Receiving accreditation since 2012. Info front - Prilep is Erasmus+ accredited organisation in the field of Youth - 2020-1-MK01-KA150-YOU-094597.

Contact: www.infofront.mk info@infofront.mk +38970719945 / +38970764064 www.facebook.com/infofrontprilep www.instagram.com/infofrontprilep

ABOUT THE PARTNERS STORYTELLING CENTRE / THE NETHERLANDS Amsterdam based Storytelling Centre (STC) acts out of the conviction that everyone's story is important and that it is vital for a balanced society that there is room for everyone's story. STC is committed to providing that space, nationally and globally, and to training people in exploring and telling their stories for the benefit of their personal growth, resilience and social involvement and for better coexistence in today's society. In recent years Storytelling Centre has initiated and developed numerous activities in the field of storytelling. It is known nationally and internationally as a training centre, festival producer, producer of urgent performances by (young) storytelling talents and as a supporter of cultural diversity and connectivity between different cultural backgrounds. Storytelling Centre originates from the International Storytelling Festival Amsterdam which was founded in 2008 by Arjen Barel and Marlies ter Haar. This festival has developed into one of the most acclaimed storytelling events in Europe and presents both a Dutch and an international programme to a growing audience. In order to give the festival organisation the opportunity to grow and develop other activities as well, the Storytelling Centre, an NGO, was founded in 2012. The Storytelling Centre organizes expert meetings on e.g. Storytelling and Empowerment, Storytelling and Change and Storytelling and Theory, offers courses in storytelling and it developed another festival, 'Story-filled Fortresses', in and around - by now - 18 fortresses that are part of the Dutch Waterline. Over the years the Centre has increasingly focused on applied storytelling, in which the sharing of stories is aimed at bringing about social change. It started, for example a Living Library in 2014 and several community projects, like 'Osdorp, the storytelling neighbourhood'. Storytelling Centre was and is also involved in European projects like 'Aladdin', 'Picture your story' and 'Alternative Ways'. Storytelling Centre is member of FEST, the federation of European Storytelling. Contact: www.storytelling-centre.nl info@storytelling-centre.nl +31 20 412 1415 www.facebook.com/StorytellingCentre www.instagram.com/storytelling_centre 60

ABOUT THE PARTNERS LOESJE E.V. / GERMANY The objective of Loesje is to exchange ideas and opinions. To stimulate people to create their own ideas and use their own unique talents. Loesje is an organisation that tries to participate in social and cultural changes at both local and international level. The medium Loesje mainly uses for that is posters with short but strong texts (oneliners), which shine a different light on a particular subject. Our main activity is to create such posters, together with our members, but also with people from other organisations. The posters are spread in the streets, community centres, libraries, schools etc as well as online. Our target group is wide, but in some groups we are more popular: scholars, students, members of other organisations involved in social changes. Loesje is simultaneously a world wide collective of people who want to make the world a more positive creative place; and a girl from the Netherlands. The local Loesje groups write and spread posters signed by the girl Loesje, with texts about everything that happens in society. Loesje texts are mostly positive and funny, and at the same time critical, wanting to stimulate the viewers to see things from new perspectives, and take action in their own lives. Loesje texts are not trying to tell you what to think; instead they often invite to many different interpretations. The key values of Loesje are: Showing solidarity, being Anti-authoritarian, being Sexually free, Showing Initiative, being Decisive, being A-religious and being Independent. Loesje is trying to work as inclusive as possible with young people, striving for equal opportunities and a nondiscriminatory approach to youth work. We train young people from all over the world through our workshops and international youth projects, often aimed at human rights and creativity. We believe that the best way to strive for human rights, equal opportunities and even peace, is to bring people together over borders, physical and geographical ones as well as ones inside our heads. We have conducted several projects specifically aimed at inclusion and overcoming stereotypes. With our posters we provide young people a possibility to express themselves and reflect on various important topics. Contact: www.loesje.org/berlin berlin@loesje.org +49 30 97882577 www.youtube.com/channel/UCwMtdTG053JsN7oPjDpJ23A www.facebook.com/LoesjeBerlin www.instagram.com/loesje_berlin 61

ABOUT THE PARTNERS CAZALLA INTERCULTURAL / SPAIN Cazalla Intercultural is a local NGO located in Lorca, Murcia, founded in 2007. The mission of our team of professionals is to promote active citizenship, social inclusion, youth mobility, voluntary service, sustainable development, stand up for human rights, integration, non-discrimination and against genderbased violence, through non-formal education, youth information and international cooperation. Our work is structured in 5 main fields. • Online learning– since 2018 we are running the MOOC platform youth-MOOC.eu in which we are hosting learning opportunities focusing especially on educators, youth workers, teachers and others involved in the field. We are responsible for the production of the educational content as well as technical aspect. • Capacity building - on the local level through the cooperation with the local authorities - advising and information centre, local projects and trainings; and on international level by development of the quality systems mainly in the field of youth work and volunteering. • International cooperation in the field of youth – that includes promotion of the youth exchange and offering the youngsters from our local community the first international and intercultural experience; exchange of experiences, networking and implementing the training courses in the fields of expertise of Cazalla – human rights, gender based violence, participation. • Local youth work - composed of the youth information centre, and the local project with the aim to foster the participation of the young people, integration of migrants into the local society and fight against racism and discrimination. We encourage the creativity of young people and assure the quality of their work. We are currently developing language workshops, intercultural cooking workshops, school homeworks support, workshops on human rights, awareness with cyberbullying and responsible use of social networks, and so on. • Voluntary service – we work as EVS sending/hosting/coordinating organisation since 2003. During the years it has hosted about 35 volunteers, sends annually nearly 60 volunteers all over the world. Contact: http://cazalla-intercultural.org info@cazalla-intercultural.org +34 968 47 11 23

www.facebook.com/cazalla.intercultural www.instagram.com/cazalla_intercultural

USEFUL LINKS, TIPS & ADVICE Here are some usefull links for youth workers, educators, facilitators for online workshops, distance learning and facilitation:

https://youth-mooc.eu/courses/write-your-creative-story/ (Massive Open Online Course) √ TIP: You can use it for learning how to facilitate digital storytelling and digital creative text writing änd how to use the “Write Your Creative Story” methodology.

https://www.gosoapbox.com (web-based clicker tool) √ TIP: You can use it for keeping participants engaged and gain real-time insight into their comprehension.

https://www.miro.com/ (visual collaboration platform) √ TIP: You can use it for dividing tasks, creating boards, brainstorming.

https://www.mentimeter.com/ (Interactive presentation software) √ TIP: You can use it for interactive evaluation of your workshops.

https://www.padlet.com/ (real-time collaborative web platform) √ TIP: You can use it for creating interactive maps, workspaces, brainstorming etc.

https://www.vr-room.com/ (social engagement tool for student well-being) √ TIP: You can use it for creating virtual spaces for participants to engage in VR interaction.

https://www.rpg.nathanhare.net/storygen/ (story dice generator) √ TIP: You can use it for generating story dice, which contain images, from which the participants can create stories.

USEFUL LINKS, TIPS & ADVICE https://www.davebirss.com/storydice-creative-story-ideas/ (story dice generator) √ TIP: You can use it for generating story dice, which contain images, from which the participants can create stories.

https://www.quizizz.com (gamiﬁed student engagement platform) √ TIP: You can use it for creating quiz questions, testing participants’ knowledge or speed answering.

https://www.kahoot.com (gamiﬁed student engagement platform) √ TIP: You can use it for creating quiz questions, testing participants’ knowledge or speed answering.

https://www.canva.com (graphic design website) √ TIP: You can use it for creating graphic design of posters, cards, magazines, booklets, invitations etc.

https://www.app.gather.town (video conference platform) √ TIP: You can use it for online workshops facilitation. This platform allows participants to interact as video games avatars.

https://www.wonder.me/ (video conference platform) √ TIP: You can use it for online workshops facilitation. This platform allows participants to form circles and you can also broadcast.

https://loesje.org/posterarchive (Loesje posters archive) √ TIP: You can use it for browsing (with ﬁlters) and downloading Loesje posters created by international and local groups.

"The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reﬂects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein."

НАЦИОНАЛНА АГЕНЦИЈА ЗА ЕВРОПСКИ ОБРАЗОВНИ ПРОГРАМИ И МОБИЛНОСТ

Write Your Creative Story Toolkit

Articles inside

Useful Links, Tips & Advice

Recruitment

Cazalla Intercultural / Spain

The Web Association

Germany

Making contact

Spain

The Tree of Life

Storytelling tools for Youth Workers

About the project

The Netherlands

Imaginative telling