Georgia: Tell your story
A core element of ACT! is sharing stories and listening to each other. What is it that unites us? MasterPeace Georgia understood this very well, and initiated a storytelling project in 9 regions (Khashuri, Gori, Rustavi, Tsnoir, Gardabani, Bojomi, Bolnisi, Khikhani, Kaspi, and Tetriskaro) to mobilize youth from ethnic minorities to tell their story, and therefore encouraging self confidence and empowering self expression.
First steps to dialogue
As a first step the team started by creating a comfortable and safe atmosphere for the participants before introducing the task of storytelling itself. The team started with a presentation about the ACT! project, which was followed-up by a workshop which helped the youngsters to introduce themselves. This small round of introductions gave the participants the chance to observe the group dynamics and get the first impression of how they felt about this workshop. Also, it broke the silence and encouraged many of them to speak up if they have something to share with the whole group.
History now
The project used the developed technique of ‘history now’ of using scorecards to answer some questions on past, present and future. The workshops explained the purpose of filming these videos, and positive outcome of getting out of the comfort zones and building self- confidence. The teams had the assignment of finding a comfortable space to film and as a final reflection by asking how they enjoyed the process, if it was easy/difficult, what they liked the most, what kind of skills and competences they believed to have improved, what was the point of this activity.