This project asked a simple question - What happens when groups come together with the
open ended intention of telling and sharing stories?
We developed a raft of new ideas and had many hits and some misses!
We worked with groups from many organisations including:
- Hammersmith & Fulham Libraries,
- The Community Champions Projects,
- St Mungo’s,
- Hestia,
- HMP Wormwood Scrubs,
- Chelsea and QPR Football Clubs,
- The Richmond Fellowship,
- the Royal College of Art,
- the Medical Research Council,
- the Hammersmith & Fulham ArtsFest,
- Mother and Child Welfare Organisation,
- Hammersmith & Fulham Community Engagement Team,
- Young Hammersmith and Fulham Foundation,
- Hammersmith & Fulham Youth Council,
- the Hammersmith & Fulham Carers Network,
- the Hammersmith & Fulham Volunteer Centre.
- The Koestler Foundation
We tested out the value of storytelling in so many different contexts that the final results
were difficult to analyse. The message is that storytelling works – it enables people to draw
on their own resources, to discover their own meanings and capacities, to express and to
share themselves in life enhancing ways. Storytelling does not need to be taught, perhaps
it cannot be taught. The real question is how to create the occasions and circumstances
when storytelling will occur spontaneously.
To download a pamphlet that summarises techniques and methods for running
storycircles, please go to the ‘stories in the street’ section of this website.