whose story is it anyway our new commitment to encourage self expression among young people

1
Whose story is it anyway our new commitment to
encourage self expression among young people

• The stories we tell define how other people see
  us and give them an insight into how we perceive
  the world. What if this power was taken from us
  precisely because these perceptions do not
  reflect what others are used to?
• The global charity sector has a history of doing
  exactly this, us included. By filtering what
  programme participants have said and choosing to
  share only what we thought audiences would want
  to hear, we undermined their autonomy and
  contributed to colonialist and otherwise
  unhelpful ways of thinking. Now, to encourage a
  move away from these practices, Futures for Youth
  is making a commitment to participative,
  first-person storytelling, straight from the
  mouths of the young people participating in our
  projects.

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• As a method of communicating which prioritises
  the exchanging of rich human knowledge and
  experience over bland and generic information,
  participative storytelling communicates what
  personally matters to project participants in
  their own unique way. For our programme
  participants who are confident and wish to convey
  their truth independently, there will be minimal
  restrictions regarding setting, style, or method,
  with advice or support available if they need it.
  That said, the purpose of participative
  storytelling is to welcome and facilitate
  everybody who wants to join, so our teams will
  also support anybody who wants more support
  throughout the process. From discussing what
  their participation will mean in context to what
  it will look like in practice, it will be unique
  from the get-go. After all, who can tell your
  story better than you?

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• If you are a long-time friend of Plans, you may
  be wondering where this commitment is coming
  from, and what it means for you. The launch of
  Futures for Youth aside, weve noticed the media
  dis empowers young people more and more with each
  passing day. From labeling them as work-shy and
  over-sensitive, to expecting they single-handedly
  solve the worlds problems by virtue of their
  age, everything is contradictory, and few things
  are fair. Try as we might to create campaigns
  which counter this messaging, none of them could
  ever have as much authenticity as those created
  through participative storytelling.
• Participative storytelling quite literally allows
  young people to take back the narrative. By
  trusting programme participants to live, learn,
  and to discuss their realities in a way which
  feels natural to them, they wont be scared
  anymore. When their friend, who may not have
  heard of Plan International before, sees this
  courage, theyll feel it too. When a group forms,
  this feeling will be too large to ignore and
  those who didnt believe in them at first will
  have to learn too.

4

• This is the power of participative storytelling,
  and this is the power youre helping to drive
  forward by supporting Futures for Youth. After
  all, nobody can resist a good story and we think
  its time that all stories had their time to
  shine, no matter who is telling them or where
  they are being told from.
• https//www.planindia.org/whose-story-is-it-anyway
  -our-new-commitment-to-encourage-self-expression-a
  mong-young-people/