Introduction

Group of diverse people gathering
Group of diverse people gathering
Pexels, Matheus Bertelli

Each community is characterised by ethos and values that are directly related to the history, population, and culture of the people who make up the community. Storytelling has always had a role to play in shaping our world, helping to bridge divides, build connections and bind communities together. 

Successful communities share their stories and develop actions to strengthen the ethos and values of a community by focusing on social contact and cooperation between citizens, experts, and local authorities.

Task

Group of multiethnic people gathering around female speaker in studio
Group of multiethnic people gathering around female speaker in studio
Pexels, Matheus Bertelli

Community ethos and values are important elements for community building and the social cohesion of a community. Storytelling draws in more voices, builds empath and story sharing can create connections between people and reveal common values.

Your task as a front-line community worker is to organize with your fellow community workers a youth storytelling workshop. The activity or event you plan must be inclusive and promote community ethos and values in the community as well as their cooperation. Your end goal is to organize a storytelling activity where young people will share their stories and opinions on what they have experienced and what they believe regarding their community’s values and ethos shaping each other’s point of view.

Process

In the resources section under documents there are detailed instructions on how to organize the youth storytelling activity/event. You can also find valuable tips and approaches in the provided website links on the techniques of storytelling events.

Remember as someone who works in the frontline as a community worker, you will need to use your teamwork skills to cooperate with your teammates. You will need to use your creativity and communication skills to cooperate with young people from your community, and you will use your flexibility and openmindedness to bring forward the different stories promoting community ethos and values.

 

Conclusion

Once you have completed this module you will realize the importance of storytelling and story sharing process in understanding, sharing, and highlighting community ethos and values with members of your community, and the role of organizing storytelling activities and events for the promotion of community ethos and values. You will realize that storytelling activities planning can be used for planning different groups of participants (youth, seniors, locals, immigrants, minorities etc.) in order to address different needs, challenges for different and diverse groups of people.

Evaluation

Learning Objectives

  • Users will learn about the role of storytelling in understanding community ethos and values and its importance for social cohesion, community building and development.

Knowledge

  • Users will learn more about storytelling and story sharing process and how to extract useful info for a community’s ethos and values.
  • Users will understand the importance of storytelling and story sharing process that promote community ethos and values.
  • Users will understand the different steps of creating a youth storytelling activity/event.

Skills

  • Users will learn how to implement steps and methods and organize a youth storytelling event focused on community values and ethos.
  • Users will learn to recognize and synthesize the different stories and point of views of participants and extract valuable info on the values and ethos of a community

Attitude

  • Users will learn to appreciate storytelling and story sharing process in highlighting community ethos and values and their importance for cohesion and community building.
  • Users will change their attitude towards storytelling and story sharing process and will use valuable lessons for understanding, sharing, and highlighting community values and ethos with different participants.