In May 2023, the Integral Alliance hosted a Storytelling webinar to introduce their Storyteller’s Guide. This Guide brought together seven Integral Members to share their learning and best practice around ethical storytelling. A total of 103 people joined the webinar, which ran twice to cover different time zones. Fifteen Integral Members were represented, which included staff from five field offices, with 12 Integral Partner and other organisations also taking part.
Helen Manson, the chair of the Integral Dignity in Humanitarian Storytelling Working Group says, “My hope for the webinar was that people would go away feeling inspired, educated and empowered to capture the best possible stories and images they can in order to represent the participants in their programmes in a powerful and dignified way – I think we achieved that!”
Here is a selection of participant feedback:
“I love the quote that when we share about someone’s story, it creates the stereotype for them to become like so. I will remember this and apply it to my practice both at work and in my personal life. I will share the story that I want to be, specifically a positive one.”
“I will put into better practice how to make an informed consent. This is something usually taken for granted meaning just a piece of paper to sign and secure the respondent or subject’s consent in the process; but the webinar made me reflect that it is not just that. So, from now on I will be more intentional in taking informed consent whenever I write a story, take photos and shoot videos.”
“Personally, I loved the tips on photography and how to tell stories from an ethical viewpoint.”
Helen shares about future plans, “We were so encouraged by the participation and response from hosting this webinar, that we would love to keep exploring this important topic as an Integral Working Group. Also, over the next year we hope to put on more training sessions, so that we can keep learning together to ensure that all the content we produce is done to the very highest ethical standard.”
Integral Members are committed to ethical storytelling and want to continue to share learning and best practice to inspire others. If you missed the webinar, we are happy to share the film here. Integral is also making Our Storyteller’s Guide freely available as a resource here:
Link to the Guide
Link to the film used in the webinar
Copyright © Integral Alliance 2023. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for the reproduction of text from the Guide for training purposes provided that the materials are distributed free of charge and that credit is given to Integral.
