Break the Silence by Thami Nkosi from Center for Digital Storytelling on Vimeo.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Amy Hill from the Center for Digital Storytelling, who has been conducting workshops in new media to enable people from various communities to share their stories and raise awareness about social issues, from gender violence to HIV/AIDS. I met Amy at a summer institute on oral history at Columbia University and was impressed by not only the breadth and diversity of the center's programs, but also by her commitment to empower people to share their journeys from trauma to triumph. She has brought digital workshops all over the USA and to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Congo-Brazzaville, Guatemala, South Africa, and Uganda. 

Q. What is "digital storytelling" and whose stories are you hoping to tell?

People use the term “digital storytelling” to describe a variety of different media-making processes. As far as we at the Center for Digital Storytelling know, our founders (Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley) coined the expression more than 15 years ago, when they developed a unique workshop environment that enables small groups of people to come together and write, craft, and record written first-person narratives; gather still photos and video clips; and learn via hands-on computer tutorials how to use digital editing software to combine these elements into short digital videos known as “digital stories.”

Our core values reflect a commitment to personal voice, group process, and participatory production methods. In this sense we do not claim to tell other people’s stories; rather people in our workshops are supported in telling their own stories, in ways that make sense to them. The approach has more in common with community-based oral history, popular education, and some forms of participatory video than it does with traditional journalism or documentary filmmaking techniques, which generally situate “expert” storytellers in positions of authority and relies on them to capture and edit stories on behalf of and about “subjects.” In our case, the “subject” is the primary author/producer of the story.

Over the years, we have worked with a broad range of individuals and groups, ranging from K-12 schools, community organizations, and state and local government departments, to higher education and health institutions, international NGOs, broadcast media outlets, and many more. We have adapted our process to emphasize healing from grief and violence, building leadership skills, promoting team-building, forging connections between youth and helders, creating connections between youth and elders, and fostering language/technology literacy in communities across the United States and around the world.

We are committed not only to bringing stories to life but to ensuring that they are seen and heard in venues that enable learning, build community, and inspire justice. To this end, we offer a variety of important services in addition to workshops, including comprehensive program planning, story focused curriculum development and web design/development, consultation on story distribution, adaptation of stories for print media, social media, and radio, facilitator training and mentoring, program research and evaluation, and much more. View some of our case studies online.

Q. You have an initiative titled "Silence Speaks" - what is it like for your storytellers to speak out about very personal experiences through a creative process that is so public?

Silence Speaks is our program that focuses on gender, health, and human rights. Originally conceived as a U.S.-based initiative bridging the Center’s work to domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, Silence Speaks has expanded to address a range of issues globally. The program supports the telling and witnessing of stories that all too often remain unspoken -- of surviving and thriving in the wake of violence and abuse, armed conflict, or displacement, and of challenging stigma or marginalization related to health and sexuality.

The extent to which Silence Speaks stories actually become “public” depends entirely on the goals and objectives of our partner organizations. In some cases, storytellers have complete control over whether or not, where, and how their stories will be shared outside of the context of a workshop. In others, storytellers come into the process with the understanding that what they produce is intended for viewing by a range of different audiences – ie, local community members, service providers, practitioners in a particular field, policymakers, the general public, etc. Our commitment is to above all prioritize storyteller safety and understanding, through transparent informed consent processes. There must always be an “out,” and storytellers must be provided with multiple opportunities to determine what they do or do not feel comfortable revealing in words or showing in images, in their stories.

So I am not comfortable speaking on behalf of Silence Speaks storytellers or generalizing about what it’s like for them to “speak publicly,” because the definition of “public” varies widely from project to project. I can say that in ten years of developing this work, I have learned volumes about what it can mean to bring a very sensitive, usually “private” story into public spheres and how to best ensure that the workshop experience and subsequent experiences of sharing stories with broader audiences is a positive one, for the storyteller. For me, one bottom line is building trusting relationships with workshop participants before, during, and after they create their stories. When they know their personal experiences are being respected, honored, and valued as tools for change, locally and/or globally, they are much more likely to feel comfortable sharing their stories.

All of this is ongoing; my commitment to ethical practice will continue to evolve. I do know that in the context of international health and human rights work, the chances for misunderstanding exploitation of stories and images are heightened. I am constantly pushing colleagues in these fields to really examine their approaches to “collecting” testimonies, stories, etc., and to evaluate whether their actions are truly benefitting those who so generously share their stories.

Q. Your recent compilation of Silence Speaks stories focuses on international women's human rights issues, many of which are health-related. What do you think are the biggest obstacles that prevent women from receiving the health care/assistance they need?

Before I became involved with digital storytelling, I worked in public health/women’s health for nearly 15 years. So I have naturally gravitated towards media work that is health-related. Over the past six years, I’ve done Silence Speaks projects in South Africa, Uganda, Brazil, Republic of Congo, Guatemala … addressing HIV stigma, gender-based violence, the impact of war on women, sexual and reproductive health and rights, obstetric fistula, and more. All of these efforts have required that I research local contexts/national contexts of these issues, in a given location. I am quite convinced that the two biggest obstacles, for women, to achieving optimum health and wellness, are gender bias/oppression at all levels of society, from family to community to government; and poverty and structural inequality, which constrains access to the most basic forms of health care for both women and men.

Q. What cultural factors play into the health outcomes for these women? How do they reconcile their recovery with their beliefs?

Culture absolutely plays a role in women’s health and wellness, but what that role is varies widely across culture and geographic areas. I would hesitate to make blanket pronouncements about the relationship between culture and health, other than to say that the beliefs, practices, and traditions that are handed down from one generation to the next –- about the causes and meaning of illness/health problems, about women’s and men’s respective roles in caring for the sick, about when healers and health practitioners should be contacted – often figure prominently in digital stories. The ways in which culture plays out, in stories, can make those stories incredibly valuable as sources of key information and learning, for health providers, policymakers, etc., who often seem to struggle to understand the specifics of how culture and health intersect.

Q. What has the creative process been like for your storytellers and what are some of the most interesting changes or outcomes you have seen?

For some, sharing verbally with a group committed to thoughtful and attentive witnessing seems to be the most impactful piece; for others, it may be looking old photos or thinking creatively about what kinds of photos might work in their stories; for still others, a great deal of satisfaction results from the writing process, or the hands-on editing process. The beauty of digital storytelling is that it offers multiple entry points into a creative process and thus has the potential to reach just about anyone in a fairly deep way. Unfortunately we have lacked resources to do rigorous research about workshop participants’ experiences of making stories, but we do have lots and lots of short participant surveys that suggest close to a 100% satisfaction rate with the workshop process. I also worked with a social work intern some years ago, who conducted a qualitative study of a small group of participants and found that:

1. The group process provided a sense of connection, support and validation.
2. Creating a digital story provided an opportunity for new forms of self-expression leading to new and meaningful insights.
3. Participants felt able to challenge the silencing effect their experiences of violence had had on them which allowed them to claim or reclaim aspects of their selves.
4. The process engendered feelings of pride and satisfaction for participants.
5. Sharing their completed digital stories with others led participants to feel a sense of social agency whereby they believed their digital stories impacted or had the potential to impact others.

One study participant said, “When my story has been screened, people have come up to me and said, ‘That is exactly my story.’ And there is something about that … it makes you feel less isolated and alienated.”

Additional storyteller comments can be found here: http://www.silencespeaks.org/about-us/impact-on-storytellers-.html

Q. What are you working on next? What are your goals in the near future and what support would you need to see it through?

We are currently working to develop several U.S.-based and national projects, including:

•  A qualitative research and strategic communications effort exploring Native American young women’s stories about sexual and reproductive health and justice;
• A pilot effort to train young people affected by the long conflict in Northern Uganda on the use of media production tools and the development of personal stories, as a way to elevate youth voices/leadership in post-conflict program design policymaking in the area;
• A project with Nepali women designed to share personal narratives as tools for public education and accountability related to the country’s recently adopted Domestic Violence Act (the first national legislation in Nepal that directly addresses gender-based violence);
• A cross-regional project to promote human rights education and peace-building among youth in South Africa and Bosnia, related to historical contexts of, and present day issues with, sexual violence against women; and
• A second compilation DVD (see information about our current offering here: http://www.silencespeaks.org/christina.html) of stories by women from around the world that address women’s human rights issues, to be accompanied by a comprehensive discussion/teaching guide.

My goal is to really continue to push/evolve the discussion around ethical approaches to storytelling, in the context of the sensitive issues that Silence Speaks typically addresses. The tone of this conversation differs depending on whether it’s related to work in the U.S. or overseas. But either way, I am concerned by the ways in which personal stories are increasingly commodified/exploited. The age of YouTube and easy uploading of video has led to amazing strides in information sharing. It has also unfortunately led to an explosion of previously marginalized voices and images, online. The need to carefully navigate this tension that you describe has been a central aspect of the development of Silence Speaks over the years. The idea of resolving it is ongoing, a work in progress -- we’ve learned both from mistakes and successes about how best to prioritize a storyteller’s sense of ownership of her/his creation, wherever it is (or isn’t) shown. When our partners to have an agenda around public sharing of stories, we weave informed consent throughout a project, so that people can make conscious decisions about whether or not they are ready and interested in sharing their stories and so that, if they do decide to participate in a workshop, they can be assured of lots of discussion about what it means to share this name, that image, those experiences. These measures are intended not only to keep people safe (ie, from retribution, from stigma in their communities, etc.), but also to ensure that they have a meaningful experience as they go through the process of creating a story. 

And then there’s the issue of context, when it comes to bringing public attention to “silenced” issues. We take special care, in working with our partners on story distribution, to contextualize individual narratives against a backdrop of larger social, political, and economic structures. We have seen that with skillful presentation, first-person voices can illustrate the systemic causes of poor health outcomes, barriers to culturally/youth appropriate services, and gaps in policies that protect the health and well-being of children and adults in ways that demand accountability and prompt change at community, institutional, and government levels. We focus on projects that bridge community and public media arenas and position storytellers as leaders in speaking out about issues that affect their health and well being.

In all of our work at the Center, we view multimedia / digital media tools as just that: tools to assist people in sharing meaningful stories from their lives. We do not glorify them or see them as in and of themselves capable of bringing about change. We believe that what is important is how and why these tools are used. With Silence Speaks, I am not interested in “collecting stories” just for the sake of creating an archive of stories; I am interested in critically examining the ways in which the process of sharing and listening to stories can lead to specific changes across multiple levels of human experience and influence. Of course user friendly digital editing and production tools are essential to this idea, if the stories are to be developed in media formats. But teaching people technology skills alone or dumping equipment into their communities absent a coherent plan for how these skills or pieces of equipment can be utilized to promote an analysis of life circumstances, build political consciousness, or support community/civic engagement, etc., seems to me to be extremely misguided.

When it comes to the role of the internet in bringing attention to topics often surrounded in silence, I would caution readers to think carefully about who benefits from the proliferation of narratives of suffering and sorrow, online. Is it the storytellers themselves? Or is it journalists and media outlets, always on the lookout for a story that sells … NGOs and government agencies with particular funding / programmatic agendas, who may view such tragedies as instruments for fundraising or “communications” campaigns with poorly articulated goals … or distant viewers sitting alone at their computers, who may simply come away from watching the stories with a sense of helplessness, or fatigue, or relief and appreciation for their own relative safety? Of course Silence Speaks is enmeshed in this dynamic, since our continued work is in some respects supported by the outreach and publicity that sharing stories on the internet can bring about. But when it comes to project development, I prefer to focus not on strategies for internet distribution and instead on mechanisms for sharing stories with local audiences, where they have the potential to really make a difference. Our colleagues at WITNESS have offered useful mentoring along these lines, with their emphasis on sharing activist videos with “micro audiences” who are in a position to influence key human rights issues.

In terms of support, we are hard-pressed to secure adequate resources, and encourage support from interested individual, corporate, and foundation sponsors.