Our Stories Matter
2020-2021
SUMMARY
In the service of fostering resilient communities and promoting well-being, Our Stories Matter brings together activists and healers to create an innovative and multimedia method of community engagement, recognizing the importance of storytelling in the process of healing.
Our Stories Matter is a multi-episode podcast and documentary produced in partnership with Trauma Informed L.A., making healing a community-centered process and acknowledging that trauma does not occur in a vacuum and is more than an isolated victim narrative. Collective healing harnesses the idea that people are agents in the creation of their own well-being and can use that agency collaboratively.
Across fourteen episodes, guest storytellers discuss how they have pursued well-being and healing, with an emphasis on activism and other forms of arts-based community engagement. In addition, the project partners with Unchained Scholars to produce a documentary highlighting how a group of graduate students who were formerly incarcerated have turned their lived experiences into social justice activism, while overcoming the collateral consequences that they faced when they returned home.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
- Brings together a network of activists and healers to create an innovative multimedia method of community engagement through storytelling
- Provides greater exposure for the Unchained Scholars, a group of formerly incarcerated USC students who are leading efforts to destigmatize the inclusion of formerly incarcerated individuals in higher education
- Empowers listeners to personally explore how artistic mediums can be used for liberation and healing at an individual level
