Upcoming Events
Documenting Refugee Stories
Virtual
Join us for a conversation with Diya Abdo about oral history as a tool for documenting refugee experiences and advocating for immigrant justice. Diya founded Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campuses and supporting them in their resettlement, and led an oral history project recording newcomer experiences.
In this conversation, we’ll explore topics including:
- Practices around relationship-building, privacy, and ethics for storytelling projects with immigrants and refugees
- Ṣawt (“voice” in Arabic), a new oral history project that records and amplifies the voices and experiences of refugees hosted by colleges and universities
- Creatively adapting oral histories into a variety of formats, including comics, literary narratives, videos, and powerful visuals
Community Voices Initiative
Virtual
In this intimate and interactive multi-week course, you’ll will take a deep dive into ethical storytelling and gathering first-person narratives. Participants will learn about project planning and be guided through conducting and editing oral history interviews with a community member, constituent, or colleague. You’ll finish this course with a completed narrative ready to share, as well as a road map for documenting more stories and insights on how to incorporate these strategies into social impact work, community building, fundraising efforts, advocacy, and more.
Workshop #1: Narrator Experience and Storytelling Ethics
Virtual
VOW’s summer workshop series provides training opportunities to help you gain skills, reflect on best practices, and plan to document community voices.
This session introduces an ethics-driven, empathy-based approach to oral history storytelling, with a focus on trauma-informed practices and centering the needs and experiences of narrators throughout the project. We’ll collectively reflect on important ethical questions, and a VOW narrator will share their perspectives on telling their story through the oral history process. The workshop will be facilitated by VOW staff and Zaira Arvelo Alicea, a narrator from Mi María: Surviving the Storm, Voices from Puerto Rico.
Workshop #2: Exploring the Interview Process
Virtual
This session provides an introduction to interview practices, focusing on the role of respect, reciprocity, curiosity, trauma-informed approaches, insider/outsider power dynamics, consent, and more. We’ll explore case studies and create space to discuss challenges that may arise during the interview process.
Workshop #3: Building Narrative Editing Skills
Virtual
This session provides an introduction to VOW’s oral history editing style that combines journalistic integrity and a literary approach to honor narrators’ voices and highlight complex issues through personal story. We’ll share concrete tips and skills and provide an opportunity to practice on a sample transcript from an oral history project.
