Youth Leaders Speak Project - GOJoven

Through the project, GOJoven of the Public Health Institute and Silence Speaks led two digital storytelling workshops with selected GOJoven Fellows who came together in four-day sessions to record first-person accounts of what led them to the field of youth health, collect images and video clips with which to illustrate their stories, and learn how to edit these materials into the short videos. They created a personal narrative framework and script and used multimedia materials to create the visual version of the story with the goal of improving their capacity to communicate through visual images. The project worked towards an understanding of the power of the personal narrative as a tool for reflection and a tool to motivate others.

The project has posted the stories on their YouTube channel, including Jacinta's story (see video below) of her persistence in getting an education in Quintana Roo, Mexico, where she had to overcome discrimination for being indigenous and a woman, including her father's belief that women should not be educated - in Spanish, subtitled in English. Another is Nekeisha's story of her aspirations, cut short by her relationship and pregnancies, then her involvement with GOJoven as a trainer in SRHR - in English with Spanish subtitles.

The project created a guide on how to use the digital stories as a starting point for provider training, community health education, and advocacy related to improving adolescent SRHR. For the screening of stories, partnering organisations recommend using the project’s “Guide for Facilitators” (See Related Summaries below.)

The Digital Storytelling organisation provides a Digital Story Screening Tracking Sheet to record where and how the stories are presented. It also provides a fact sheet and a page of storyteller biographies, available in printable PDF format for the audience.

Rights, Youth, Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS