Unlocking the power of ‘why?’
How to equip young people to step into their story and contribute a verse in a world of constant change
Internal disruption before external disruption
Imagine a moment where you could see, in real-time, a young person’s hesitancy, fear, and lack of confidence start to fade away. In the Power of Why portion of our “Storytelling for Changemaking and Social Impact” program, one can witness a young person giving her or himself permission to unlock their inner changemaker to the world.
As the camera stares back at them in the video blogging exercise, there is a moment when some students push record that their internal barriers to creating, collaborating and contributing a verse in this world are destroyed.
Recently, we’ve been piloting a new program with Changemaker Schools, like the African School for Excellence, that facilitates young people stepping into their story as changemakers and mastering the process of storytelling/communications for community engagement and social impact.
Watch scholars from the African School for Excellence share their ‘whys’ for being agents of change. Try it yourself, tagging #MyWhy and tweeting it to @youth_venture:
Giving exercise and movement to changemaker muscles
Empathy, teamwork, leadership and creative problem-solving are changemaker muscles inside each and every person on earth. But these muscles require constant exercise against entropy. In the classroom, at home, in the workplace…these changemaker muscles need movement and action.
The Power of Why exercise cultivates peer-to-peer learning, empathy and team building. From this foundation, students of ASE realized that they had more changemaker stories to tell and to live out in the world.
“That is my why: Why do you see me as different? Why can’t you accept me for who I am? I am here for you and you are here for me, wherever you are in this world,” says one ASE scholar.
During the storytelling program, ASE students experienced creative ways for building a team, scaling an idea and fostering community buy-in. They also studied how such concepts require a connection between the mind, heart and breath. Without connection to breath, ideas and actions for changemaking will not travel beyond the walls of a room. Without communication, undiscovered potential will never break anonymity or challenge outdated systems.
Whether in a camp with Syrian refugees or students in a Changemaker School in South Africa, we find that the process of storytelling and communications hits multiple targets:
Storytelling interventions cultivate a space where young people enhance their employability with Information Communications Technology (ICT) literacy — a critical skill for youth identified in a recent study by the World Economic Forum.
Engages young people in a experiential process of social and emotional learning that prepares them to thrive — not just survive — in a world of accelerated change.
Storytelling hubs — led by youth and teachers — breaks siloed communities of concern, builds spaces of empathy and creative collaboration while helping to contextualize changemaking for local stakeholders and media.
From simulation to actualization
OK, so young scholars at ASE learned the basics of communication for social impact and venture creation. But so what?
The ‘so what?’ factor is that by simulating and exercising their ideas in collaborative storytelling, students exercise and discover their ability to create something from nothing. This is a powerful tool we all possess as human beings. In the process of creative enterprise, students in the storytelling program formed connected teams with well crafted ideas and solutions that they then wanted to actualize in the school and surrounding community.
The scholars of ASE chose to focus their first changemaker actions on an anti-bullying campaign. To date, the young storytellers at ASE have launched two assemblies on campus about bullying and changemaking and they will be releasing a series of youth narratives and story projects for the community in the coming semester.
A pre and post workshop survey conducted with the 30 student participants from ASE yielded some interesting findings:
100% of students stated they had a better understanding of what it means to be a ‘changemaker’
82% are planning to or are in the process of launching their own youth-led Changemaker idea
89% are going to share the program and what they learned on Changemaking with family members and peers
Before the program began, a low number of students referenced concepts like ‘team of teams culture’ and ‘empathy’ in a pre-workshop survey asking students to identify changemaker qualities. After the program, more than 50% of students referenced the importance of empathy and team of teams culture. A majority of survey respondents particularly appreciated the program’s concept of treating failure and mistakes as fuel for innovation and creativity. This is telling of the fact that many young people face increasing pressure from adults and society to not fail or make mistakes.
Stay tuned for more updates from Youth Venture, Ashoka Changemaker Schools, and the young front-line changemakers of ASE in Tsakane.
Follow @asesouthafrica, @Mohsindin, @youth_venture, sa_ashoka for more updates.
*The storytelling program was made possible thanks in part to support from the Lettera 27 Foundation and program support from Ashoka South Africa and Youth Venture.
