Press & Awards
Co-Director Natasha Freidus has joined forces with other Seattle moms to offer workshops and consulting geared towards parents. Media Mamas builds on Creative Narrations' work to support parents in expressing the emotions of parenthood, and to advocate for family friendly policies. Check out their local review on Red-Tricycle. Tasha's newest Media Mamas story, The Arsenic and the Crab, is being used as a tool for outreach and education to implement family friendly safety policies. As a result, Media Mamas and the message of this story have been featured on the Safer States Coalition website, and on National Public Radio.
Creative Narrations co-director Natasha Freidus has a chapter in a new compilation of social change storytelling initiatives, Telling Stories to Change the World (eds. Solinger, Fox, and Irani). Her essay, “Our Stories, Their Decisions: a lesson in voter education” discusses how digital stories can be a powerful voter engagement tool. View the stories, read the essay and order your copy at Powells or Amazon.
In January of 2006, Creative Narrations led a train the trainer workshop for the Tufts University College for Citizenship and Public Service (UCCPS). UCCPS was interested in using digital storytelling as a way for students to reflect upon and document their experiences in the realm of public service. Staff and faculty collaborated to bring digital storytelling into the classroom, where students have created effective multimedia pieces to explore perceptions of race and class. Read article and view story.
"What the Water Gave Me", produced by Maya Castillo in a Creative Narrations workshop, was accepted into The Boyle Heights Latina Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2007. Maya created this piece as part of a train the trainer workshop at the University of Arizona's College of Public Health.
The Media That Matters Film Festival celebrates films, videos, and new media that inspire people to speak out and take action for social change. Bad Choices, by Aderian Fair, was selected to be part of the 2005 Festival and declared winner of the Youth Voice Award. In "Bad Choices", Aderian describes how his need for attention led to an arrest for bank robbery. He offers advice to his peers, telling them, "It's just not worth the attention." Lean on Me, written, directed, and edited by Harold Clinton, age 13 of Springfield, MA, and co-produced by Creative Narrations and the Center for Reflective Community Practice at MIT, won the Youth Digital Story Award at the 2004 Media that Matters National Film Festival.
