Our Projects
Take a look at our featured projects.
In collaboration with the Center for Native Digital Storytelling, Creative Narrations trained the staff from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to create, teach and promote digital storytelling in their communities in the spring of 2008. After creating their own story, former participants had opportunities to work as Creative Narrations co-facilitators and coaches during a "Train-the-Trainer" series of workshops in the fall and winter of 2009. They have since gone on to facilitate over ten trainings on their own throughout Alaska. The stories created by ANTHC are being used in community meetings and workshops to promote healthy lifestyles throughout Alaska and to raise awareness of the real public health issues facing Native families in this region. Check out an example of their work here.
In the summer of 2005, Creative Narrations provided consulting and training to the Somerville Community Corporation in their mapping project of East Somerville. In a series of workshops, neighborhood residents learned the basics of still photography and digital audio. They then went out in the field, recording stories, images, and interviews in businesses, parks, street corners, and other places of significance. Residents wove these recordings, along with data such as air quality, green space, bus stops, etc. into a collective community map and website. Since 2005, SCC has used this map to better understand the patterns and experiences of neighborhood residents, and as an organizing tool at neighborhood meetings. In 2006, SCC received a grant from the Somerville Arts Council to turn this project into an interactive, online map. They are currently in the process of adding video clips of interviews to engage community residents in land use planning. Take a look!
Since 2001, Creative Narrations has worked with the The Right Question Project (RQP) to document the impact of RQP's innovative approach to teaching self-advocacy and citizen participation. These testimonials have become an essential part of the way that RQP demonstrates its work to collaborators, funders, and policy makers. Creative Narrations has produced numerous videos and digital stories in collaboration with end-users of The Right Question Project in both early childhood and adult education settings. Through a participatory process, early childhood educators, adult educators, and adult education students learn to voice the changes they've witnessed in themselves and changes in their practice while simultaneously gaining exposure to the media production process. Creative Narrations also collaborated on RQP's Voter Engagement Strategy for Election Day and Beyond in 2004 and 2008. The goal of this Initiative was to create a new, easily replicable model for more effectively engaging low-income citizens as voters. In 2004, Creative Narrations worked with workshop participants to create a series of digital stories to stimulate dialogue with GED, job training, and ESOL students around issues of citizenship and participation. In 2008, Creative Narrations documented the results of this strategy through a series of audio interviews. View the complete range of Creative Narrations/RQP productions.
From September 2006 to June of 2007, Creative Narrations Co-Director, Natasha Freidus, worked in conjunction with the municipality of Vilanova i la Geltrú and The Department of Communications at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona, to pilot and evaluate the digital storytelling methodology in Catalonia, Spain. “Created by Catalonia” explored new models for citizen generated media in the transition to Digital Terrestial Television. The pilot began in the fall of 2006 with the design and implementation of a digital storytelling train-the-trainer series. Potential trainers from grassroots media efforts, civil associations, and public entities were recruited to take part in a series of intensive workshops. Both the first workshop, in November, and the second workshop, in March of 2007, lasted for four days where sixteen participants learned about the theory and practice of digital storytelling by creating their own stories. Participants wrote first person scripts in either Catalan or Spanish, recorded their voices, manipulated digital images, and edited together their media into brief video projects. Trainers represented a range of social and cultural interests including public health, youth development, the public libraries, museums, and cultural affairs. Upon completing the training, participants created an implementation plan to bring digital storytelling back to their place of work. Current projects include digital storytelling in public health presentations in elementary schools, interactive stories at the museums, and local artist stories to promote cultural events. Natasha's stay in Tarragona was made possible with a Fulbright Fellowship. See sample stories.
