The Tree of Life

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.

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-