Our chosen methodology is a storytelling which we are planning to put in practice during our Story Walk in Gdańsk in near future (Covid restrictions permitting).
We are planning a walk as a tool that will help activists to work for/with their communities, places, inspire decision makers and ourselves. After all, we are all the change!
The goal of the Story Walk is to rise the awareness, to give voice to those who need it (or don't know how to voice it), to inspire decision makers, to motivate, to connect right people/organisations - by following passionate advocates who work with local communities.
A Story Walk is a lightweight (informal) way of presenting and delivering (a valuable/important message), a tool that could quickly raise the awareness, shift people mindsets (and could be easily duplicated).
That's the general idea anyway.
And lets not forget that there is also another, very obvious aspect to any outdoor walk, our well-being, both physical and mental!
No to look far, we have already experienced, and took part in some very interesting story telling walks during our I_Improve project, to name a few.
Improving Talking while Walking.
Within our I Improve project we had an opportunity to take part in some very interesting walks with guides (artists, community leaders, enthusiasts and specialists in different fields etc) telling us stories connected to the sites we visited.
In Ostend for example we were taken on a walk (one of a few walks) where we learnt about a network of Service and Meeting Centers in local neighbourhoods. These centres focus on information and education, meeting and social engagement, on well-being and care taking, with a special attention to vulnerable people and people with special needs. The activities developed for the centres follow the principles of ’ageing in time and place’. The idea is to improve the social contact between different generations, offer meaningful leisure activities.
Other examples of story walks from Ostend, click here.
In Gdansk our quests were taken on a walk along the historical waterfronts in the Lower Gdansk District by Elzbieta Woroniecka from „Storytellers Association” which is run by a group of inhabitants of Lower Town District who for many years have collected stories and mementoes connected to this area. Eventually the association digitalised most of their collection as digital social archive.
Other examples of story walks from Gdansk, click here.
In Vienna (among other things) we have learnt about social housing scene, which plays a massive part in the character of the city and the standard of living of its inhabitants.
There are many more great examples of such walks which were conducted during our I_Improve visits.
Follow the link to discover them all. Click here.
As the River // Cities Platform we have been working on various story telling tools, which incorporated into the walks that are based on stories, could make it even more interesting, appealing to and engaging for participants.
This way we have discovered the concept of Story Walk (this is also a concept we have practiced for years, while visiting our partners - without conciously knowing it to be a great tool or giving it a proprer name), which uses story telling techniques in various ways.
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