About SharingStories Foundation
From the organization’s website: SharingStories Foundation (SSF) works with multiple art forms, in dynamic relationship with stories, creating multi-media outcomes. The Foundation supports Indigenous communities to hold, share and transmit languages, stories and culture for present and future generations. We also work with communities to promote a deeper understanding of ATSI cultural experience across Australia.
Visit the SharingStories Foundation website
Our team includes highly experienced facilitators implementing projects that are community-driven and underpinned by self-sustainability, skills transfer and capacity building. SharingStories Foundation blends innovation through technology with deep understanding of cultures based on oral traditions. We support communities in utilising cutting edge technologies to hold and transmit some of the world’s oldest stories.
Media from SharingStories Digital Storytelling Programs
Our work responds to issues repeatedly raised by Elders, Cultural Custodians and communities with whom we work, and by whom we are directed. These include capacity building in the context of:
- Self representation in the media space through transfer of skills needed to create and share community based stories.
- Provision of platforms and technologies that support community capacity to produce contemporary interpretations of ancient cultural forms and ways of seeing the world, celebrating and maintaining cultural heritage in new and vital ways for the long term.
- Designing resources to enable, and facilitating, a culturally relevant learning practice in schools that acknowledges Indigenous knowledge systems, brings Elders into the classroom and returns children to Country with their Elders for the purpose of inter generational transmission and media production, supporting capacity for vibrant artistic production processes to be a part of everyday life.
- Developing, building and sharing innovative digital tools to assist with language and cultural maintenance.
- Facilitating production of important community based cultural archives for present and future generations.
- Developing new audiences and deepening appreciation and respect amongst non-Indigenous Australians for Indigenous culture, cultural heritage and connection to Country
SharingStories Foundation Programs
- Digital Storytelling Program
- Education
- Language Lightbox
- Cultural Mapping
- Sharing Our Stories books and iBooks
- Song for Country
Example: Digital Storytelling Program
SharingStories Foundation’s Digital Storytelling Program designs innovative, tailored resources and lesson plans to support the implementation of our workshops. These resources respond to a variety of subject areas and required outcomes across the curriculum. A SharingStories focus is implementation of a self-sustainable process; as such, the Professional Development we offer teachers as part of the preparatory and workshop process is an integral part of what we do.
The Digital Storytelling Program has its own community website:
Here you will find a collection of the stories from all the communities that are members of the project.