The Intercultural Storytelling Project
What is Intercultural Storytelling? Intercultural storytelling promotes intercommunity cohesion and social inclusion as a literacy practice for New-Irish with more settled 'locals'. Story-partners share and co-write their biographical experiences and cultural knowledge which are then published and disseminated to foster greater two-way integration. For more, see Dr Sheekey's TEDx Talk. Click the links below for free access to our storytelling materials, background literature and approaches: |
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The Intercultural Storytelling Project
The aim of this project is to help build understanding and community between our members, from all parts of the globe, and members of the local communities or from the Irish community in general of all ages and from all parts.
The project involves citizens from the new and local communities pairing up to share and write each others’ stories and so help build stronger ties between the two groups. The storytelling was created and is facilitated by Dr Peter Sheekey who developed this approach while researching his PhD. We shared the results of our storytelling in the form of a published book (see Our Stories below) which we hope will foster greater tolerance, understanding among our richly diverse communities.
A School's Testimony
Hello Peter,
Just to let you know that we did a 6 week story telling project with 4 volunteers and 4 students here in Kilkenny. The project was a great success and was enjoyed by all. We used your templates and format for storytelling. We will definitely continue with another group after the summer. Over the summer, we will probably trial it with student/student pairs - from different nationalities. I will let you know how we get on!
Thanks a lot for your help and all the resources, - Mary Steed - Kilkenny and Carlow Education and Training Board
A Student's Testimony
I can’t forget the Storytelling Project and Intercultural Language project. These projects help me a lot to improve English, to integrate in the community, meet new people, and learn different culture. I am so happy and fortunate to have the chance to meet these people. They demonstrate how we can make a difference in our community, country or even in the world. Thanks for sharing with me your experiences, your dreams, challenges, and your life. I really appreciate being part of the storytelling project and your effort on this. I don’t have enough words to thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. - Cristina from Brazil
Useful links (in blue font):
REFOCUS CREATES A GLOBAL NETWORK OF MEDIA LABS TO EQUIP ASYLUM SEEKERS AND REFUGEES TO TELL THEIR STORIES IN FILM: ReFocus
Learning from Intercultural Storytelling Listen
Great Storytelling project at Narrative 4 Ireland
Our storytelling grew from the diary writing idea of Bonny Norton, who went on to produce this wonderful StoryBooks project
A full article on our Storytelling Project by Dr Sheekey here: Intercultural Storytelling Project
Article by Julie Daniel on the MELLIE Project based on our storytelling Dublin City University: MELLIE Project
Forty refugee storytellers, from diverse backgrounds and living all over Europe, photographed and interviewed the people featured on this website: The 1000 Dreams Storytellers
"Get beyond “they are good for us” – tell stories of the “new us” instead. Tell ordinary stories, not just extraordinary ones." A great story framing resource: here
Stories That Matter, a storytelling toolkit for youth groups.
Changemaker's Guide to Storytelling
A more radical view of storytelling: Why Intersectional Stories Are Key to Helping the Communities We Serve
The Center for Intercultural Dialogue; guides & resources
The mental health benefits of storytelling
The Great Oliver Sacks on telling and being and Narrative Medicine
Have a look and listen to this video of our first Storytelling day at the Barbara Ward Centre:
Click on this cover below to access our 1st volume of our intercultural stories:
Click on this cover below to access our second volume of our intercultural stories:
Access Volume 1 of Our Stories from Dr Sheekey's PhD study here
Here is a brief account of our storytelling by volunteer Marie Neary:
Every Friday morning a group of volunteers and students meet as part of a multicultural storytelling project under the auspices of Dr. Peter Sheekey. We gather at a local community centre off Clonliffe Road from 10 am until 12 midday. The encounters are free and are designed especially for long term residents in Ireland who have limited or no other access to English lessons. One of the aims is to build bridges between local and new communities. The students are from diverse backgrounds and their country of origin includes Ukraine, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Syria and several European countries.
The model is simple and based on the Language Experience approach; student and volunteer are partnered and discuss a general topic that the students are interested in and therefore easily understood. Topics discussed include arriving in a new country, favourite festivals, past activities and favourite places, with the emphasis on discussing only what everyone is comfortable with. An example of how the class operates is as follows: - the volunteer asks some questions relating to the topic and the student dictates their answer; at the end of the class the student gets to reread their work and once happy with the content the volunteer takes the work home to enter it into a journal which the student again gets to read the following week and make any necessary changes. The beauty of this class is that the role is reversed on alternative weeks and the student gets to ask all the questions, write out the answers and do their homework. As the reading material is generated by the student themselves we are all comfortable and relaxed with the content.
What is in practice a morning of meeting and making friends over tea and conversation combines all of the language arts including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Being part of this project has given me an insight into some of the lives of the new Irish. While many stories are told with humour, like one Polish student warning his visiting friends to get used to eating chips with vinegar, or that Irish people don’t understand the clock. Behind this there are also stories of great loneliness and isolation for those so far from home who can’t speak the language. Alleviating such loneliness and isolation is a major aim of Dr. Sheekey’s project.
Maryam Madani, a DIT student made the following video at our spring 2018 Storytelling:
AIlish and Nasouh read their partners' Biopoems from our storytelling:
Inter-generational Storytelling in Australia
At 102 years old, Florence Wheeler never expected to share her life story with a 16-year-old stranger, but it turned out to be an experience they will both cherish. Find out more here
At 102 years old, Florence Wheeler never expected to share her life story with a 16-year-old stranger, but it turned out to be an experience they will both cherish. Find out more here
MELLIE project at DCU: dcu.ie/news/2017/mar/s0317e.shtml
Well done to Dr Veronica Crosbie of DCU for involving refugees from direct provision in Mosney in an intercultural storytelling project: "The university is now pleased to announce the new Migrant English Language, Literacy and Intercultural Education (MELLIE) Programme. MELLIE is an innovative extra-curricular pilot project designed to facilitate language and cultural exchange between DCU students and staff, and asylum seekers from Mosney Direct Provision Centre, Co. Meath."
Well done to Dr Veronica Crosbie of DCU for involving refugees from direct provision in Mosney in an intercultural storytelling project: "The university is now pleased to announce the new Migrant English Language, Literacy and Intercultural Education (MELLIE) Programme. MELLIE is an innovative extra-curricular pilot project designed to facilitate language and cultural exchange between DCU students and staff, and asylum seekers from Mosney Direct Provision Centre, Co. Meath."
A touching follow-up story from Verena at our Sister storytelling project at the DCU:
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verenawulf.wixsite.com/lifestories/single-post/2017/05/23/Eire-Land-of-100000-Welcomes?action_object_map=%5B958572797578618%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.comments%22%5D&fb_action_ids=10211134058846276&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=other_multiline